The Champion's Road
by Tomathor
Summary: It's story time and uncle Eric has a very interesting story to tell indeed. One doesn't become the Champion of the pokemon league, without having some interesting tales to share after all. His account goes back to a time where a lot of legendary pokemon are taking increased interest in the Coira region and the mysterious Umbra organization is on the move.
1. Of tests and dances

CHAPTER ONE

Of tests and dances

"Hey uncle Eric, tell us a story!"

"You wanna hear a story? What kind of story?"

"How about the story of how you became the Champion of the pokemon league? You promised us last time that we would get to hear it!"

"Oh yes that is a good story indeed. Now where to start? I guess I'll tell you how I started my journey as a trainer. Back then I was sixteen and finishing up my fourth and final year at trainer school, together with my partner Sam."

#

"Hey Eric!"

Elly's shout made me look up from my text book: 'Learning-Theory for pokemon trainers'. Elly was waving at me with a cup of coffee in both hands, she had done up her mouse brown hair in a pony tail and was wearing a shirt with a Talonflame on it. Trailing right behind her was Tess her Kirlia, her red horns standing out against her light blue hair.

"Hey Elly." I mumbled "How did your exam go?"

"Oh you know so-so _"Name three ways to cure a pokemon of a poisoning" _was easy enough but after that it just kinda went down hill." With a shrug she sat down opposite of me and put the coffees down. "So how did yours go?"

"Couldn't take it. The guy who took it before me got bitten badly enough by the Rattata we were supposed to tame that he had to be shipped to the hospital. They had to put the whole thing on halt for now."

"Wow he must have passed with flying colors then."

The sip of coffee I had just taken almost came back up through my nose as I snorted. With a smile Elly started drinking her coffee.

"So how is Sam doing?" she asked tentatively.

"He's still recovering at the pokemon center, evolving twice in less than an hour really did a number on him."

"How did that happen anyway?"

"Well from what I understand his first stage evolution is a very volatile state, that's why they're called _"trade evolution"_. Sometimes you'll recall them and the next time you let them out of the pokeball they'll have evolved. Still though, the speed at which Sam went through it is very unusal, but the nurses said he is gonna be fine."

"Mhm that sounds good at least."

"Yeah."

A somewhat awkward silence arose as we both turned back to our cups. After some time I tried to pick up the conversation again.

"So uhm, I was uhhh wondering if ..." My mouth had gotten very dry at this point. Desperately I tried to mask my loss for words by clearing my throat. Elly was shooting me a questioning look.

"I-I-I" Taking a gulp and a deep breath I tried to calm down. This couldn't possibly be this hard dammit.

"I was wondering if you already have a date for the ball."

Elly almost choked on her coffee, while Tess who seemed to have seen what was coming looked like she was giggling. When I managed to scrounge together enough courage to look Elly in the eye, I saw that her face was glowing about as red as mine felt.

"I-I. No I don't."

"So uhm you wanna go with me?" Somehow I managed to get those words out through my tensed vocal chords.

"Uh yeah sure, I'd love to." Judging by her grin I took it that I didn't mess up too badly.

"That's great." Luckily my pokegear chose that moment to notify me that I would now be able to take my exam.

"Alright Elly see you around, I gotta go take my taming exam now. Thanks for the coffee."

"Uh yeah you're welcome and good luck." She answered still a little red in the face.

I got up, grabbed my bag and shuffled off to the exam hall.

#

Soon I arrived in the classroom that had been prepared for the exam. Luckily as it turned out the Rattata I had been assigned to tame was very cooperative. Maybe they thought they'd rather not have another incident. With the help of some pokefood and neck scratches I had gotten her to follow my commands soon enough. Getting her to bite through the rope to complete the test was easy from there. The examiner seemed happy enough and sent me on my way. Having finally put that behind me I made my way to the pokemon center to check up on Sam.

_"So you finally managed to untie your tongue long enough to ask her out did you?" _Sam said in my mind.

_"Oh shut up master of seduction."_ I thought back._ "Who was so worried what Tess would think about his new tail, that he immediately evolved again?" _

Sam wasn't very amused. He put down the Knight a little more forcefully than necessary.

_"Check mate."_

I looked up at Sam, still a bit disoriented by his new look. The mustache threw me off the most, and he'd grown quite a bit during his transformation into an Alakazam.

_"Well at least your chess skills don't seem to have suffered."_

Sam shrugged. _"You know we psychic types aren't exactly known for losing our logical thinking skills during evolution."_

_"Touché. Well I'm happy you managed to adjust. So are they gonna let you leave?"_

_"I think so. They were saying something about some test results they're waiting for before they let me go." _As if on cue one of the nurses came up to us holding a clipboard.

"Everything seems to be in order, his psywaves have normalized and his blood is looking good." She said looking over her notes. "You're free to leave at any time. Oh and if possible keep your usage of psychic abilities to a minimum until you manage to form your spoons. Telepathy and light telekinesis should be fine, but anything more than that could have some unintended side effects."

"Thanks a lot for taking care of him."

"You're welcome."

After packing up the chess board me and Sam made our way out of the pokemon center. Once we made it past the automatic doors we headed towards the canteen.

_"Well luckily they let you go before my theoretical training exam, I was starting to get worried that I'd actually have to study for it." _I thought at Sam.

_"I already told you, I won't help you cheat on this one. I've got a feeling they will be taking precautions against something like that."_

I snorted. _"Is that feeling of yours some weird psychic sixth sense or what?"_

_"Yeah it's called common sense. You won't be the first trainer to attend this school with a psychic pokemon. Heck you aren't even the only one in your year. Surely you don't think that you are the first one to come up with the genius idea of having your psychic type help you with telepathy?"_

_"Hmph."_

What Sam was saying made sense of course, as it so often did.

_"Well I guess I'll just have to cram as much as possible in the next two days."_

And with that happy thought I grabbed a tray to line up for todays dinner.

#

As it turned out Sam had indeed been right. On the day of the exam we settled in in the classroom, which had been re purposed as an exam hall for the finals. After the head examiner had read the rules out loud and instructed us to fill in our name and student number on the front page, they started a big timer in the front of the hall. Two hours started to tick away. Notably the examiners were not the only ones patrolling the desks. A pair of Xatu was flying overhead, no doubt screening for psychic activity. With a sigh I flipped over the cover page and started skimming the test.

"Describe a training regimen to teach a Pikachu the move 'Iron Tail'" Well that would be easy enough, so at least it was looking like I would be able to snag a few marks here and there.

"Describe the process of teaching a pokemon a move via a TM, and name an advantage and a restriction this method has over the traditional way."

"Describe which precautions are to be taken when teaching a pokemon a new fire move."

"Name three ways in which evolution can influence the learning of new moves."

And on and on like that it went, over 4 pages of questions. With a kind of fatalistic resolve I started scribbling my answers on the sheet. As I was writing time flew by. By the time I arrived at the end of the last page the head examiner in the front called out: "You have five minutes remaining. Please make sure you've written your name on every sheet you wish to hand in."

Having arrived at the end of the test I lazily flipped through my answers giving them a halfhearted double checking. I knew most of what I wrote was hogwash but at least I did the best I could. For the first time during the exam I noticed that I was very hungry so I was looking forward to getting out of here and grabbing something to eat.

"Your time is up, please set aside your pens and remain seated until we've collected all the exams." The silence of the room was broken by the rustling of dozens of papers and the clicking of staplers as the examiners moved around the room gathering the exams. A few minutes later the head examiner gave us the go ahead to leave. The room emptied rapidly under a lot of chattering. I headed straight for the canteen to silence my grumbling stomach.

#

The next two weeks continued in this rhythm of cramming, writing an exam and starting to cram for the next one. But somehow I managed to get through it all. Sam while he couldn't actively help me during the exams was still a great help while studying. Turns out the guy who remembers everything he's ever seen is pretty good at quizzing you.

As the last exam ended a cheer went through the students. The results wouldn't be in for another 2 weeks and we were all looking forward to some time to relax. But the school year hadn't officially ended yet, there was still the end of year ball to attend. And I would be attending it with Elly. The thought made my head spin. At last something to look forward to.

When I arrived back at the dorm Sam was sitting cross legged on the bed looking very pleased with himself.

"Move over, will you?" Sam did just that and I threw myself face first onto the bed.

_"So how did it go?"_

_"It went well. Maybe even well enough to balance my blunder in the training exam. You were right on almost all the questions they were gonna ask. You still haven't told me how you managed to figure that one out."_

_"Well it was pretty easy, after studying with you and knowing all the material it was easy to cross reference it with the questions asked in past exams."_

_"Huh well it sure came in handy that I revised evolutionary stones right before it, they asked a lot of questions on it."_

_"Glad to hear it worked out."_

I turned my head to look at him. That's when I noticed that he was spinning something in his fingers.

_"Hey, you managed to make your spoons!"_

_"Yep." _I could feel Sam's happiness at this new development.

_"So you'll be able to fully use your psychic abilities again?"_

_"Exactly. So the ball will be this evening right?"_

_"Mhm, I'll be picking up Elly on my way there. But first I need a nap, operating on only 2 hours of sleep isn't doing me well."_

_"Alright I'll be out for a few hours, I've got some business to attend to, now that I can make full use of my abilities again."_

With a big yawn I gave him a thumbs up - albeit only a mental one.

_"Take care." _And with that I was off catching some well deserved Zs.

I was awoken by the beeping of my pokegear. The first thing I noticed was that it had gotten dark outside, the sun was already setting. Getting out of my stupor I realized that the annoying sound coming from my pokegear was my ring tone. I picked it up.

"Where the hell are you?" Came the rather angry voice of Elly through the speakers. A moment later a holographic representation of her appeared in front of my face. She looked about as angry as she had sounded.

"Uhh, I think I overslept." I looked sheepishly at the camera that was transmitting my hologram to Elly.

"You did what? I was worried about you, you moron!" She still looked angry but also sounded relieved. "Get your ass over here, we're gonna be late to the ball."

"Aye aye captain." I smirked and hung up before she could get angry again. Hoping into the shower at lightning speed and back out again I put on my one button down shirt and the least casual pair of pants I owned, which just ended up being the only ones that weren't jeans. I fell into a sprint through the door and out onto the campus.

"Damn gentleman you are, letting your lady wait like that."

"Should have read the fine print when I asked you out. OUCH. That hurt. You look stunning by the way. Your dress is beautiful."

"Don't think flattery will make me any less angry at you!" Despite her assertion Elly definitely seemed less angry with me. She'd undone her pony tail letting her long flowing hair rest on her shoulders.

"Let's get going, otherwise they're gonna be done by the time we get there."

"Uhh yeah. Say have you seen Sam anywhere? He went off to do something, I thought he'd be back in time for the ball."

"No I haven't seen him." She furrowed her brows. "But I'm sure he can take care of himself."

"Mhm."

"Oh come on, we're done with exams stop being such a mood kill."

_"It's true Sam can look out for himself." _Tess added via telepathy.

"Alright alright." Having finally arrived at the gym which had been re purposed for the occasion we entered. The hall was mostly empty, but at the far end they had built up a ton of sound equipment. Even from all the way across the room, I recognized Lea's wild hair bobbing and weaving among the consoles. How the faculty had let that metal head be the DJ is still a mystery to me. At the edges of the big empty room where a lot of tables fully laden with pretty much every snack imaginable. The biggest space was reserved as a dance floor, and it was already in full use.

Grinning at Elly I asked: "May I ask for a dance?"

"Abso-freakin'-lutely."

Elly was in her element, while I was more like a fish out of water. Tess seeing my struggle tried to give me advice, but having a psychic dancer in my head didn't exactly help with my concentration. As the current song came to an end I thought I had done a pretty good job at not completely embarrassing myself.

"You wanna grab something to eat?"

"Sure."

We strolled over to one of the tables and grabbed us a sandwich and a glass of orange juice each. Moving to one of the tables we sat down and started munching away. There were still more students entering the hall. One of them came up to us.

"Hey Elly, Eric."

"Hi Stan. 'Sup?"

"Oh I'm looking for Lea. We were planning to meet-up here, but well." He waved his hand at the chaos of students. "It's pretty hard to find your own two feet in this chaos, nothing to say of another person."

"I think Lea's on DJ duty right now." I said pointing at all the sound consoles standing at the far end of the room.

"Oh thanks, I'll go pick her up then."

Elly nibbled on a biscuit she had gotten from one of the food caches. "Eric do you already have something planned next week?"

"Not really no, I was gonna take the time to relax. Why are you asking?"

"Well dad has to go to Latinia City on some business, and we've still got our house there, it's right by the beach. We're turning it into a family vacation and mum and dad told us all that we could bring friends along. So what do you say, a week of lying at the beach without a care in the world? Sound good?"

It sounded amazing, but before I could answer something crashed into me out of nowhere. Literally. Sam had chosen that exact moment to teleport right on top of me.

_"Sorry for that."_

_"You'd better be. What the hell have you been up to anyway?"_

Sprawled on the floor and trying to untangle myself from Sam, I noticed that Elly's initial expression of shock had changed to one of amusement.

_"I had to retrieve something from my cave. A swarm of Zubat has started nesting there since I was last there. Little buggers nicked one of my spoons. I daresay my teleportation was quite successful considering the circumstances."_

_"A bunch of Zubat got the better of you?" _It was hard to hold back a snicker.

_"There were a few Golbat as well." _Sam thought indignantly.

_"Well did you find what you were looking for?"_

_"I did." _He opened his hand. He was holding a gemstone with a rich red colour.

_"It's a part of the crystal that grows in the back of the cave. It has some interesting properties when subjected to psy waves." _Sam stared intently at the crystal. A second went by and then another. Nothing happened. Sam intensified his stare, and a shudder went through the crystal. _"Well it seems I'll have to make a new spoon before I'll be able to channel enough energy into this thing."_

_"You'll have time enough for that on our vacation?"_

_"Vacation?"_

_"Yeah Elly was just offering to host us at their beach house before you crashed the party."_

_"Oh. Well it sounds amazing."_

Looking up at Elly I could see that she was barely holding it together.

"Well it sure seems like we could use a vacation." I said from the floor. That was too much for Elly and she burst out laughing.

"It looks like it, yes." She managed to get out between bouts of laughter.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, if I may have your attention please." Eddie's voice boomed through the speakers. "We will be starting this years trainer-pokemon partner dance contest momentarily. If the contestants would gather at the dance floor we will be ready to go."

Elly and Tess got up and moved towards the dance floor. "Good luck you two." I shouted after them. Elly gave me a smile and a thumbs up and then she was off to the races.


	2. Of nightmares and swords

CHAPTER TWO

Of nightmares and swords

"So did aunt Elly win the competition?"

"No, unfortunately not. Eddie captured the hearts of the audience, together with his break dancing Munchlax. But if I were you, I wouldn't bring that up to Elly, she's still a little bitter about it."

"I wouldn't dare to think about it."

"Mhm. Well I hit up mom and dad to tell them that I'd been invited by Elly. They were fine with me taking a trip. So the next day me and Elly took the train from Ariala City to Calibrea City. There we met up with the rest of the Bianchi family. There was Elly's older brother Jack who brought along his girlfriend Rachel. Then there was Mr. and Ms. Bianchi of course. And who could forget the twins Sophia and Laura, Elly's younger sisters. They must have barely been eight at the time. So we all boarded the ferry together that would take us to Latinia City."

#

"The weather sure is amazing right now." Elly was standing at the railing, looking out over the water. I joined her and just took in the beauty of the great blue expanse before us. Latinia City had just started to creep up behind the horizon.

"Yeah it really is. Especially after spending the last month doing nothing but studying, eating and sleeping."

"Oh don't remind me of that, we're on holiday now! It's time to relax and forget about all that." Elly shot me a sharp glare.

I threw up my hands defensively. "Hey _I _am 100% relaxed."

"Eric‽ Hah, the world sure is small!" I turned around to face the person who had just called out to me.

"No way! Dan what are you doing here?"

"Same as you I reckon, getting to Latinia to get a nice rest at the beach."

Daniel was coming toward me, grinning from under his black tousled hair and raising his hand for a fist bump. My fist met his.

"Dan this is Elly. Elly meet Dan. We had all our battling classes together. I didn't see you during the ball though. What were you up to?"

"Nice to meet you! Yeah about that, I just kinda dozed off after our evolution exam. By the time I woke up I had long slept through the ball."

"I can see why you two became friends." Muttered Elly.

"I almost stood her up for the same reason." I went and answered the question written on Dan's face.

"Well they really did work us to the bone though. I think we had earned a good sleep. So are you guys going to Latinia for the festival as well?"

Elly nodded while I raised a questioning eyebrow.

"What festival?"

"You've never heard of the Swords Festival?" Elly was staring at me in disbelief. I shrugged.

"No, I haven't."

"It's a festival for the three heroes who banished the nightmares, or something like that anyway. The legendary Latinian fire dancers will be performing one of their pieces. Oh and there will be the duel between the noble houses as well of course." Dan sure sounded very excited.

"A duel?"

"A representative of the houses Apomono and Malem will be dueling for the honor of hosting the festivities." Elly said to me. "And _you_ should show some respect for the heroes." She stared daggers at Dan. He took a step back at the sight.

"Whoah. You don't really believe in some hogwash legend do you?"

"Of course I believe it, the noble houses can still track their lineages all the way back to the heroes and beyond even."

Dan was clearly ready to keep arguing until he noticed my frantic signals to drop the issue. "Hmph, well anyway it's sure to be a good time, and a friend told me about a place where you can get the best meat skewers ever."

"Sounds great." I quickly interceded before Elly could start arguing again. "So I guess we'll see you at the beach?"

At that moment Sophia came running along and crouched down, pressing herself between Elly's legs and the railing.

"What in the world are you doing Soph?"

"Shh, we're playing hide and seek. Laura's never gonna find me here." Giggling she made herself as small as possible behind Elly.

"Well you seem to be occupied." Dan smirked. "See you around."

#

Half an hour later the ferry had arrived in Latinia City. There was a bit of shuffle as now Sophia was looking for Laura, but luckily she turned up when we were looking for our baggage, as she was hiding among the trunks and bags.

With every piece of luggage (and every person) accounted for, our small procession got off the ship. Luckily the Bianchi's house wasn't far from the harbor so after another half an hour of brisk walking we arrived at the holiday getaway. The house had a white facade and was partially built on stilts. A wooden stair led from the sand to the front door. By the time we arrived it was already late in the afternoon, and after we finished moving into our rooms it was evening.

Ms. Bianchi had roped us all into cooking duty, so me, Elly, Jack and Rachel were peeling potatoes and slicing veggies. Meanwhile Ms. Bianchi was somehow managing to keep an eye on the stew, prepare the salad and keep the twins from turning the living room into cinder wood. Currently they were trying to catch the marbles that Tess and Sam were levitating across the room.

_"I wouldn't mind some help over here you know." _I thought at Sam.

_"From what I can see you've already mastered the art of cutting greens, I could hardly be of assistance."_

_"Oh you're a git."_

The kitchen was filled with the smell of our evening's work when we all sat down at the living room table. Hungry as we were from the day's travel we started digging in without much fanfare. As the initial hunger was stilled, conversation started to spark up.

While reaching for another serving of stew, Jack turned to me and asked: "Say Eric you were studying to be a trainer right? Does professor Adler still teach battling classes?"

"Oh yeah that old fossil is still alive and kicking. We're all pretty sure he made a pact with Dialga to stop aging or something. It would also explain how he manages to make a minute feel like ten."

Jack laughed heartily, making the silver earrings on his right ear jingle. "Yeah that sure sounds like him."

"So you went to trainer school in Ariala as well?"

"Yeah I finished five years ago, did some traveling and now I'm working as a gym trainer in Lucida City."

"Hah, you better be prepared for my visit then!"

"So you're planning on taking on the gym circuit then?"

"Absolutely! Well if I managed to pass and can get my trainer license anyway."

"Ah I wouldn't worry too much about that. If I think back to some of the people in my year who managed to pass I'm pretty sure you'll be fine."

Under lighthearted chitchat and hearty laughter evening turned into night. And as the twins took to balancing spoons on their noses Ms. Bianchi decided that it was bed time. Both of them protested but seeing as they broke into great big yawns right after it was rather ineffective. Deciding that we wanted to be up early tomorrow to get to the beach, the rest of us turned in for the night as well.

#

"Wake up sleepy head. If we wanna make the sunrise we gotta get going now." Elly was knocking at the door of the guest bedroom I was staying in. She was doing it with such gusto that she didn't even notice me sneaking up behind her.

"If you keep going like that you'll wake the whole house."

She practically jumped out of her skin. "Where the hell did you come from. I thought you were still sleeping."

"I am deeply offended. When have I ever given you reason to doubt my punctuality?" I feigned offense with a smirk. "Anyhow I was taking a shower, and if you let me through to my room I can get my swimming wear and we'll be on our way."

"Uh yeah. I gotta get changed as well."

Elly stepped out of the way a little red in her face. Chuckling I entered my room and changed into a pair of swimming trunks. After grabbing a towel I made my way out the door. Taking the stairs down into the living room I was surprised to find that we weren't the only ones up already. Jack was already sitting at the table with a coffee mug in his hand joined by Mr. Bianchi.

"Why, you're up early." Jack said peering over his mug.

"Mhm. Elly's dragging me out to the beach to see the sunrise. What are you doing up already?"

"Oh Rachel and me are taking a sailing trip, we'll be gone all of today and tomorrow. Well that's if we manage to catch the tides today. I'd better go looking what Rachel's up to." With that he took one last sip from his cup and got up.

Mr. Bianchi chuckled and got up as well. "Well I really must get going as well. You all enjoy your holidays. From what I've heard from Elly you've earned it." Grabbing a coat and his briefcase Mr. Bianchi took his leave with one last wave of goodbye.

I got myself a chair and took to waiting as well. Elly didn't let me wait for long though, and five minutes later we were out the door.

Even if it was the middle of summer it was still quite chilly without the sun up, especially considering I was effectively wearing nothing but shorts. We walked a little along the shore line until we had a clear view due east. Elly dropped her towel in the sand and started wading out into the water. "Come on in the, water's nice and warm."

Hesitantly I placed down my towel and made my way towards the water. It turned out to be quite a bit warmer than I expected, although calling it "nice and warm" still seemed like a stretch to me.

Elly used my moment of hesitation to splash me with water. "Hey! You'll pay for that." Dashing out into the water my retaliation was swift and brutal. Elly caught a mouthful of water as she was still giggling at landing the first strike. We traded blows back and forth until we were both exhausted. We just let ourselves drift for a while.

"Look it's starting!" Elly called out. I turned around to face the horizon and there it was. The very tip of a bright red disk was starting to creep its way up. The first rays of light were reflecting off the water and turning the whole world into a shade of bright red.

"Have you ever seen anything this beautiful?" Elly whispered besides me.

"Yes." I whispered back. "But it was only once. And quite a long time ago."

We must have drifted there in the shallows for at least an hour just soaking in the view. I was only disrupted in my thoughts by the rumbling of my stomach.

"You wanna go back to grab breakfast?" Elly seemed like she was taken out of a trance. "Yeah sounds great." So we waded back to the shore and wrapped ourselves in our blankets before making our way back to the house.

After having eaten breakfast we were joined by Ms. Bianchi and the twins on our trip to the beach, where we were dead set on doing absolutely nothing. And that's exactly what we did. Sam especially really took to the water.

_"One could think you're a water pokemon with how happy you are spending time in there."_

_"Oh you don't even begin to understand. Being in the water is the most amazing feeling ever. It's just like floating, except that I have to do absolutely nothing for it." _I could feel Sam's elation through our psychic link. And the feeling was very contagious. Not being too big a fan of water myself I spent most of my time laying in the sun, watching Elly, Tess and the girls build a sand castle.

At some point Dan showed up with Axl his Machoke joining me in doing absolutely nothing. "Damn I forgot how the sun felt in the past month." He said to me looking over his shades.

"Yeah tell me about it."

"So I was thinking, since the famous steel gym is in this city, it would be a shame to spend time here without paying it a visit. What do you say? Wanna go check it out tomorrow?"

"Hmm. Sounds interesting for sure. But I don't know if we'll be able to pull Sam away from the water."

"Well he doesn't have to join us, it's not like we'll be challenging the gym leader."

"I guess you're right. Sure let's go check it out. But now I'm dedicated to spend the rest of the day doing nothing at all."

"Hear, hear."

And that's exactly what we did for the rest of the day.

#

So on the next day after breakfast I made my way into the city proper. Dan and me had decided to meet at the pokemon center and then go from there to the gym. I was expecting the center to be easy to find as they usually were with their bright red roofs. But Latinia city was quite a bit larger than I was accustomed to, so I got hopelessly lost and had to ask for directions. Luckily with that, the center turned out to be quite easy to find. Dan was already waiting for me at the front door.

"Hey what took you so long?"

"I texted you I was gonna be late! I got lost in the city trying to find the pokemon center, luckily some nice lady was able to point me in the right direction."

"Hah, well now that you're here we can get going."

And together we got going. The gym was situated in the old town. When we arrived both of us were gawking.

"Are you sure this is the gym?"

"No, but there's the gym emblem so this has to be it, right?"

It certainly didn't look like a gym, more like a gigantic mansion. The three story building was standing a little elevated from the other buildings on a small hill. We made our way to the front door which had a big sign with "Latinia City Gym" written on it, so we were pretty sure that we were indeed in the right place. Carefully pushing open the door we found ourselves in a huge foyer. There were more signs in this room, one of them directed spectators up a flight of stairs, so we followed it.

They led onto a balcony overseeing a different room. A young man was already standing on the balcony and peering down into the room below. If the markings on the floor didn't make the fact obvious that this was the gyms battle arena, the two pokemon locked in a struggle made things crystal clear.

"Let's go Medicham, High Jump Kick!" Called out a female trainer from one side of the room.

"Bisharp, hit 'em with a Sucker Punch." Came the order from a middle aged man from the other side of the room.

Both blows connected viciously, but the Bisharp seemed to have taken it worse than the Medicham, as it didn't get up.

"Bisharp is unable to battle!" shouted a referee from directly under us.

Dan let out a low whistle. "Well I didn't expect to be able to catch a fight. These guys are really going at it."

The man who was staring intently at the fight, seemed to just now notice us. "Hello. You guys here to scout out the arena before taking it on?"

"Uhh not really, we don't even have our trainer license yet. We just thought it'd be cool to check out the gym, since it's the last one in the circuit. Is that what you're doing? Scouting the gym I mean."

"Mhm, you could say that yes." With that he turned back his attention to the fight.

"You're not bad. But let's see if you can beat this!" The gym leader was holding up his last pokeball. "Let's go Aegislash!"

The pokeball cracked open as he threw it and released a burst of light, that took the form of a sword and a shield.

"The battle will now continue."

"Medicham, Fire Punch!" The pink pokemon ran towards the sword pokemon, it's right hand dowsed in flames. It seemed like it would land a clean hit.

"Aegislash, use Shadow Sneak!" And the Aegislash seemed to melt into the shadows. Medicham's punch went wide, but it didn't have much time to be surprised, as Aegislash reappeared behind it and struck it in the back with its shield. Medicham went sprawling across the floor but managed to get back up, although it looked worse for the wear.

"That's enough, Medicham return!" The woman stretched out her hand clutching a pokeball and the Medicham was recalled in a bright flash of light.

"The challenger has withdrawn her pokemon, it may not be used again!"

After putting away her pokeball, the challenger quickly picked another one from her belt. "Arcanine let's finish this!" The huge fire dog that emerged on the field let out a deafening roar to make its arrival known.

"Both the challenger and the gym leader have chosen their last pokemon. The battle may now continue."

Wasting no time the challenger called out, "Arcanine, use Flare Blitz!" The majestic canine went up in flames, and charged head first at its opponent.

"Block it with King's Shield, quickly!" The Aegislash managed to raise its shield just in time to block the Arcanine charging at it. Arcanine took a leap back, and although Aegislash hadn't managed to land a blow, it looked a little tired out.

"Arcanine, he won't be able to use that move again! Now is our time to strike!" the trainer called out, clutching at her necklace which had started to glow bright red. "We'll end this now and then we're headed to the Elite 4!" While she talked, she struck a peculiar pose stretching out her right arm and grabbing it with her left hand. Arcanine meanwhile had taken on the same glow as her necklace, and seemed to be steeling itself for an attack. The glowing seemed to be concentrated at its mouth now. "Let's go, full power Z-Move! Inferno Overdrive!" The glow turned into a fireball that grew and grew, before Arcanine launched it at the Aegislash, which was bracing for impact.

It didn't stand a chance. The fire ball exploded right before it hit, expanding into a blindingly bright sphere of hot air and flames. The Aegislash was blown back and did not get back up.

"Aegislash is knocked out. The challenger wins the battle!" called the ref after the scene had settled.

All three of us in the balcony were gawking like we had just seen an Arceus swoop in.

"What in the world was that?" Dan asked hoarsely.

"A Z-Move." I mouthed more than actually talking. "Don't you remember? Professor Adler mentioned them in the last lecture. He said they were a fairly recent discovery, and that only a very experienced trainer with an experienced pokemon could pull them off. I didn't expect them to be this incredible though."

We spent the rest of the morning watching the battles in the gym. It seemed like the gym leader was kept quite busy as there were a lot of challengers seeking a battle. But none of them managed to pull off such a spectacle as the first we'd seen. Seeing as this was the last gym most of these trainers challenged, they all had rather impressive teams and strategies, and more often than not they would come out of it with a shiny new badge.

As the gym closed down for lunch break around noon, Dan and I decided to check out the food place he had mentioned on the ferry. The restaurant was called "Fritz's Würstchenbude". The owner, a stout man with a thick mustache, took our orders at once. We both ordered something called a "Zigeunerspiess", after inquiring what Fritz would recommend. The meat skewers we received were very heavily seasoned but tasted incredible. With our bellies stuffed we decided to head back to the beach to relax.

#

The next few days flew by in a hurry. Most of our time we spent basking in the sun and fooling around in the water. Once the twins challenged me and Elly to a game of volleyball. To our shame they wiped the floor with us, although I could have sworn some of our shots were deflected by something. It wasn't too hard to get Sam to admit that the girls had asked him to help them out a little.

_"You'd really do me dirty like that huh?"_

_"Look I just can't say no to them when they whip out their puppy eyes. Also you guys should have let them win anyways."_

The rest of our time was spent rather uneventful. Mr. Bianchi was able to wrap up his business in the city and joined us in our endeavor of wasting time as efficiently as possible. Jack and Rachel returned as well and they recounted their tales of how they'd seen a Gyarados fight a Kingdra out in the open sea. Both of them however seemed to have had enough of adventure for the time being and took to relaxing on the beach as well.

Soon the day of the festival was here and the excitement of the city was palpable in the air. It would go on for the entire day and end in the evening with the fire dancer's showing off their newest choreography. Elly especially was excited for that.

"When I was younger I always wanted to join the fire dancers. You could say they were my inspiration to become a coordinator. Oh and dad got us all front row seats, so it's going to be absolutely a-ma-zing." She stressed every last syllable of the word.

We decided that we'd get lunch at the festival, so our little group headed out into the city with rumbling stomachs.

Almost the entirety of the old town had been transformed into a carnival. At every corner was a stand, selling food or handcrafted trinkets. There were performers juggling balls and playing tunes. To the great delight of the twins there even was a carousel.

Even from afar I could make out a stand that was labeled "Fritz's". Me, Elly, Jack and Mr. Bianchi made our way there. Meanwhile Ms. Bianchi and Rachel led the twins, who were loudly proclaiming their desire for fish 'n chips, to a different stand. Standing in line already for Fritz's was Dan.

"Hey, I thought I might meet you here." I tapped him on the shoulder.

Turning around he recognized me and took the high five I was offering. "Haha, well what can I say. It was so delicious last time around, when I saw he had a stand here I knew I had to come." And so all of us got ourselves a meat skewer before we went back to meet up with the rest of our group.

We spent the rest of the afternoon roaming around the festival, enjoying the various attractions and carnival games. The twins were overjoyed at winning a Teddiursa plush at the can tossing stand. Meanwhile Sam urged me to buy a very simple silver necklace. When I asked him what he wanted it for, he seemed to avoid my mental inquiries. I was however able to figure out that it was very important to him, so I bought it and handed it to him. Elly meanwhile acquired herself a pair of earrings beset with a small blue topaz each.

"How do they look?"

"They look very pretty on you." Being taken by surprise by the question I told her the first thing that come to mind.

_"Tell her they emphasize her eyes." _Sam's thought shot through my head.

"They really emphasize your eyes as well."

"You really think so?" Elly seemed to get a little red in her face before turning around to take another look at herself in the vendor's mirror.

Mr. Bianchi bought a huge bag of candied almonds under a very scrutinizing look of Ms. Bianchi.

"Didn't the doctor tell you to lay off on the sugar?" She asked.

"Oh darling, but it's a special occasion. And besides I'm sure I'll be getting some assistance in finishing off this bag." He answered dodging her gaze.

"Don't mind if I do then." Elly grinned and grabbed a fistful of almonds out of the bag.

Late in the afternoon we made our way to the main square where a stage had been built. Rows of benches had been placed down for to audience to sit on. There were already some people sitting there. But as most people who lived here had already seen the story twenty times over, there was still quite a bit of room. Since most of our party hadn't heard the tale of the heroes yet we settled in at one of the front benches. The twins were excited about getting to see a story they'd been told many times, reenacted on a stage. As a last few stragglers came in and sat down, an old man with a very long beard took the stage. He was holding an exceedingly long piece of parchment in his hands. After clearing his throat he started narrating.

"It was some 500 years ago when our tale takes place. Ariala was experiencing an unknown time of prosperity and its people were living in opulence." As the old man was narrating, actors were walking to and fro on the stage, all of them wearing fancy clothing.

"But a dark influence started to take hold of the City. The people's dreams where being haunted by their darkest fears. Some of them became restless due to their lack of sleep, while others went to sleep and didn't wake in the morning or the morning thereafter." The actors movements became drowsy and some just rolled up on the floor.

"Three young men of noble blood decided to investigate the occurrences. There was sir Dimitreus of house Apomono, who beat 100 men in a row in single combat." A young man wearing the insignia of an orange sword entered the now empty stage.

"He was joined by sir Lorentz of house Malem, who was able to outrun a Zebstrika." Another actor walked out on the stage, this one wearing the insignia of a green sword.

"And lastly there was sir Roland of house Sanglad, who'd read every book ever written and heard every tale ever told." The third hero entered the stage bearing the sigil of a blue sword.

"Roland was the one who had heard of a town which had met a similar fate. He suspected that the pokemon Darkrai was behind this nightmarish problem. However they knew if the were to face Darkrai on their own they wouldn't stand a chance. So they called upon the guardians of the city since ancient times, the swords of justice." Three pokemon in costumes hopped onto the stage all of them carrying a sword in their mouths.

"Virizion bestowed upon sir Lorentz the sword Sol." The pokemon in the green costume handed a green sword to sir Lorentz.

"Sir Dimitreus received Hydenum from Terrakion." A brown and yellow clad pokemon passed an orange sword to sir Dimitreus.

"And the sword Ragna would be given to sir Roland by Cobalion." Sir Roland took the sword from a pokemon wearing a blue and gray costume.

"Together they would be strong enough to seal away Darkrai. But how would they get a grasp on the master of nightmares?"

"I will challenge it to a duel, it would be dishonorable to decline." Cried out sir Dimitreus.

"No we should beg for mercy and cry out to Darkrai. Such a cruel monster would surely not miss the chance to gloat." Said sir Lorentz.

"I think we should try and lay out a bait. One of us should head to sleep while the others keep watch." Suggested sir Roland.

"As sir Roland was the wisest of the heroes they decided to heed his advice. And so they went out into the forest with their sleeping bags and set up camp. As sir Roland went to sleep sirs Lorentz and Dimitreus kept watch together with the swords of justice."

"The plan worked and Darkrai appeared to haunt the dreams of sir Roland. Rustled out of his sleep by the fight between his companions and Darkrai sir Roland drew his sword and joined the struggle. They fought Darkrai for three days and three nights. And by the end of the third night Darkrai was exhausted by the quick sir Lorentz, and was forced on the defensive by sir Dimitreus."

An actor clad entirely in black had entered the stage and had started to fight the heroes.

"The heroes did not waste their opportunity and they used their swords to seal Darkrai away for all eternity."

The three heroes were now pointing their swords at the black figure, which descended below the stage with one final shriek.

"The victorious heroes returned to Ariala where all the previously affected people were waking from their sleep. The citizens rejoiced and threw a festival in honor of the heroes."

The heroes were surrounded by happy citizens who were dancing about.

And with that the curtains fell and the performers earned much applause from the audience. All of them came out one by one for a curtain call.

"Hah, Richard was the narrator even back when we were kids. It's nice to see his still doing well." Ms. Bianchi said over the applause.

As the play came to an end more and more people seemed to trickle in and sat down. Jack who seemingly had dozed off during the goings-on, seemed to be rustled by the clapping.

"Wake up sleepy head or you'll miss the duel." Elly grinned and poked him in the arm.

"The duel?" I asked.

"Didn't I already tell you about this on the ship? Representatives of the noble houses will be dueling for the honor of hosting the festivities. It's mostly a ceremonial title nowadays, traditions die slowly in this city."

"What do you mean with dueling?"

"Well you'll see."

_"You know anything about this?" _I asked Sam.

_"Not any more than you do, but it does sound interesting. I'd expect the duel to be some sort of pokemon battle." _He answered.

The twins took to spending the time playing a game with their newly acquired plush toy.

A few minutes later the old narrator from before took the stage again. He was joined by a man in his thirties. He was wearing a ceremonial cloak over his right side, bearing a coat of arms of an orange sword. He was carrying what looked to be a rapier in a scabbard on his left side. On his cloak he wore a pin showing three crossed swords.

Richard cleared his throat and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, if I may introduce lord Leonard of venerable house Apomono, bearer of the blade Hydenum, holder of the title host of festivities." Leonard's entrance earned some polite applause.

"It would be my honor to be the host of this year's festival as well." Leonard said giving a polite bow to the audience. "That is of course unless there is someone who dares to challenge me for the title."

"There is!" Called someone from within the audience. Heads turned to the young man, no older than 19. He was wearing a very similar coat to Leonard, but his was embroidered with a green sword.

He seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't place him, until Dan poked me in the side and whispered, "Hey that's the guy from the gym isn't it?" I took another look at the newcomer. Dan was right, he was that trainer who had been scouting the gym the day we had visited.

"Speak your name challenger!" thundered Leonard from the stage.

"I am sir Victor, of venerable house Malem, bearer of the blade Sol. By my right as blade bearer I challenge you lord Leonard, for the honor of hosting this years festivities." Responded the young man.

"Very well sir Victor I shall accept your challenge."

Victor went up the stairs to stand face to face with Leonard. Both men took of their coats and handed them to Richard. Furthermore they relieved themselves of their shirts and threw them to the ground.

"What are they doing?" I asked Elly in a hushed voice.

"Whoever draws blood first wins the duel." Elly whispered back. "And let me tell you, getting blood stains out of a shirt is a pain."

"I feel like there's a story behind that remark." I whispered. Elly just shrugged with a grin and turned her attention back to the stage.

Both duelists had produced a white handkerchief and were holding in it in their left hand, seemingly presenting it to the audience. Then they both drew their swords. The rapiers were long and thin. Hydenum's hilt and cross guard were beset by orange gemstones, the hilt twirling on itself to protect the hand holding it. Sol had a similar design, except it's gemstones were green.

After they had gotten into position, they started going at each other without much fanfare. Victor was the first to strike but Leonard deflected the strike and reposted immediately. The beginning of the fight seemed slow and methodical.

_"They're testing each other." _I thought. _"They're trying to figure out their opponent before they commit to anything."_

_"It would seem so yes."_ Sam commented, staring intently at the battle unfolding before us.

As the fight went on it grew more intense and it also seemed like Victor was starting to lose ground. The crowd however seemed to be on his side.

"Come on Vic you got this!" came a shout from Elly.

"Vic?" I asked Elly with a grin.

"Oh we were friends before we moved." Elly answered getting a little red in her face.

It wasn't looking good for him though. He was forced on the defensive more and more, until he landed a very good riposte, that forced Leonard to back off. And at that moment Victor lunged, seemingly going for the same strike as he had employed at the beginning of the duel. Leonard's sword rose to meet his but it hit nothing but air.

Victor had bluffed and in reality pulled his strike to the right, pulling it across Leonard's chest. With a quick motion he drew the handkerchief across his blade, before presenting it, hand held high, to the crowd. The crimson stain stood out on the white of the fabric, and the audience erupted in applause.

"Sir Victor, of venerable house Malem is the winner of this duel." Proclaimed Richard above the roar of the crowd.

Leonard returned Hydenum to its sheath, and dabbed the thin red line that had formed across his chest with the handkerchief. He spoke, "Congratulations sir Victor. You have earned the honor to host this year's Sword Festival. Unless, of course there is another challenger."

Silence fell on the crowd as the men standing on the stage scanned the crowd below. As nothing happened Leonard bowed to Victor and removed the pin from his cloak. "Very well then, sir Victor I present you with ..."

But he was interrupted by the cry of a pokemon. The cry was joined by the sound of galloping hooves thundering down the street. From one of the alleys leading onto the main square came a pokemon. It looked like a colt, but with a bright red mane and and a jagged blue horn. Galloping towards the stage it hoped on before coming to halt in front of the audience, face to face with me. It took my brain a while to process what had just happened, and when it did Sam had already sprung into action. He got ready to fight the sudden newcomer, should the need arise.

_"Calm down psychic, I wish neither you, nor your trainer harm."_ A new voice sounded in my head, one I'd never heard before. It took me a bit before I realized that it was the horse-like pokemon before me.

_"Who are you?" _I asked.

_"My name is Keldeo. I'm part of the group you humans call 'swords of justice'. I assume you know of my companions, seeing as you're attending a celebration honoring their chosen champions."_

_"Why are you here?" _Sam asked quite a bit more aggressively than necessary as it seemed to me at least.

_"To choose my champion." _Keldeo said matter-of-factly. _"You, Eric of house Vetsch, will be my champion. This will mark you as such." _Keldeo dropped something into my lap. Looking down I saw it was a sword, similar to Sol and Hydenum. This one however was beset with red gemstones.

_"The times are different since we last chose champions. But the day will come when humanity will need champions. Until then Eric, fare well." _And as quickly as the pokemon had appeared it was gone again.

_"What in the world was that?" _I asked Sam.

_"I don't know, but I have a bad feeling about this." _


	3. Of fire and questions

CHAPTER THREE

Of fire and questions

"What the hell was that?" Elly seemed to echo my sentiment.

"I have no clue."

There was a murmur going through the crowd, and the people on the stage were obviously discussing the recent happenings. After some time Leonard stepped forward. "Well it seems there is another challenger. Challenger speak your name."

"Wait hold up I don't wanna challenge anyone, I've never held a sword before!" I responded.

"Any blade bearer in attendance of the festival has to fight, lest he brings shame and dishonor to his house." Richard mumbled through his mustache, seemingly very uncomfortable about the situation.

"No! No way! I'm not doing that."

"You must, it's your duty as blade bearer. Now tell us your name boy!" grumbled Leonard.

_"Entertain them. I think we'll need them on our side if we wanna figure what Keldeo was going on about. Also I've got an idea." _Sam chimed in.

_"You sure about this?"_

_"Yes." _I could feel Sam's confidence through his thoughts.

_"All right then I guess we better put on a show for the people."_

Getting up from the bench I turned to face Victor. "I am Eric of house Vetsch, chosen champion of Keldeo and bearer of the blade Jin. By my right as blade bearer I challenge you sir Victor, for the honor of hosting this year's festivities." At the beginning of the sentence I had no idea yet what the sword was called. But as soon as I thought about it, it was like I had always known.

Elly stared at me wide eyed. "What are you doing?" I ignored her even though there was a part of me that completely agreed with her. A murmur went through the crowd. Something about my announcement seemed to cause some distress to both Leonard and Richard.

_"You think I put it on too thick?"_

_"No, they are bothered about something else. But that shouldn't be our primary concern right now. I'm thinking more about how we make it so you don't get turned into a shish kebab."_

_"I thought you had a plan?"_

_"I do. I'm just ironing out the last few details."_

"I shall accept your challenge, Eric." Victor was grinning, at least he seemed to like my entrance.

Clutching Jin in my right hand I made my way up the stairs to the stage.

_"So about that plan of yours."_

_"Yeah just relax and focus on your movement, I'll handle the rest."_

_"What do you mean with that?"_

_"I'll lead your sword with psychokinesis, just try not to fight me too much."_

_"Not gonna lie I'm not the biggest fan of this plan."_

_"Well I don't see you coming up with anything better."_

Up on the stage Richard handed me a handkerchief while Leonard handed a fresh one to Victor. Thinking of Elly's words of wisdom I got rid of my shirt. I could make out Dan in the crowd blowing a wolf whistle. Unsheathing Jin I put the scabbard next to my discarded shirt. Both me and Victor got into position.

"As the challenger I will grant you the first move." Victor said with a smile.

"Don't mind if I do then."

And with that Sam took the reigns. I could feel Jin move in my hand and did my best to follow it. Victor deflected the strike with ease and moved to riposte which I barely managed to sidestep.

_"This isn't working as well as I had hoped I'm afraid. But I do have another idea._

_"Well what is it."_

_"Let me control you directly, or well at least your arm. You focus on evasion while I focus on offense."_

_"I like that plan even less than the old one but if you think it's best."_

Feeling my arm move on its own without my input was a profoundly weird experience. Nonetheless the resulting attack was a lot less sloppy than our first attempt so it at least seemed to be an improvement.

Once again Victor started off slow, trying to find an opening where he could force a mistake. Sam however kept him occupied well enough while I managed to evade Victor's strikes, although some of the maneuvers we pulled must have looked rather silly.

Our relative success was short lived however as Victor started to kick into gear. Sam was forced to defend against some of the strikes which I wouldn't be able to dodge. With his attention divided like that our offense fizzled out, and Victor was the one dictating the pace of the duel. And so the inevitable happened. Sam - or maybe it was just my arm - was too slow, and I didn't manage to turn away fast enough. Sol scraped my right shoulder leaving a gash. Jin clattered as it hit the ground.

The crowd cheered for Victor as he presented his handkerchief now tainted red and Richard declared him the winner. I pressed my handkerchief against my bleeding shoulder hissing at the burning sensation.

_"Well that worked swimmingly."_

_"You didn't end up skewered and didn't look like a fool. What more did you expect?"_

_"I do feel like a fool after that loss."_

_"Do you now?"_

Richard handed me Jin and instructed me to line up with the other two, Victor the only one without any blood. Richard harrumphed and started to talk. "Lord Leonard of venerable house Apomono, you fought valiantly but ultimately faltered in the face of challenge. As custom dictates you must resign your position as host of festivities." Leonard earned some polite applause from the audience.

He removed the pin with the three swords from his coat and handed it to Richard, who took it and moved on to me.

"Eric of house Vetsch, your arrival marked the first time in 200 years this festival was graced by the presence of three blade bearers. You may have lost, but you fearlessly rose in the face of challenge. That is a quality of a true blade bearer." To my surprise the crowd cheered and applauded, especially the Bianchis in the front row.

_"Still think you made a fool of yourself?"_

_"No. But I would still have preferred to get away without having my arm sliced off."_

_"Oh you know, no pain, no gain. And you can't pretend like you didn't enjoy playing the hero."_

Richard had moved on to Victor now.

"Sir Victor of venerable house Malem, you are the first blade bearer to face two opponents in over 200 years. Yet you emerged victorious, earning yourself the honor to host this years festivities. Step forth and reap your reward."

Victor took a step forward, and Richard pinned the three swords to his cloak. The audience applauded their new host.

Victor raised his hand to silence the crowd. "I am honored by this title. But enough words have already been spoken and time has the unfortunate tendency to keep on running." He drew Sol from its sheath and with a swift motion cut the palm of his left hand. "With this sword which tasted every challenger's blood today, I officially declare the beginning of the Swords Festival." And with those words he stepped down from the stage onto the main square, making his way to the massive tree growing in its center. With a shout of victory he jammed Sol into the tree and the crowd erupted.

While the crowd dispersed Victor, Leonard and me were led behind the stage where a group of nurses were at the ready to see to our wounds. The woman taking care of me muttered under her breath while cleaning the cut on my shoulder. "Grown men hitting each other with sharp sticks, unbelievable! And this time they even pulled a kid into it." After putting on a bandage, the nurse said to me. "All right, the cut's not too bad, but you should still give your shoulder a rest as much as possible. And try to keep it dry as well, at least for a few days. If it starts bleeding again and doesn't stop after you put pressure on it for ten minutes, go see a doctor."

"Got it. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Well you're free to go."

I got up and put my shirt back on. Leonard and Victor were also being treated so I decided to get myself some answers.

"So anyone care to explain to me what the hell just happened?" The two men looked up at me with some astonishment.

"Well, truth be told we had hoped you would have some answers." Leonard rumbled. "Keldeo did talk to you did it not?"

"Yes, but it didn't make any sense. All Keldeo was saying, was that it's choosing me as it's champion, and how humanity would need its champions. Then it gave me Jin to 'mark me as such'."

"Curious. Tell you what Eric, why don't you go and enjoy the festival for today? We may have some answers for you but I'll need some time to gather them together. Let's meet again tomorrow and we'll try to answer your questions. Deal?" Leonard held out his hand.

"All right." I shook his hand. Then I remembered something that Sam had said. "I do have another question for right now though. You seemed more than a little surprised back when I told you my name. Why was that?"

Leonard erupted in laughter. "You're a sharp one huh? I'm afraid your answer to that will have to wait until tomorrow as well. I don't wanna throw around guesses without double checking some things, sorry."

I wasn't satisfied but it didn't seem like he was gonna budge on this. "Ok then. But you better have some answers for me tomorrow."

"I promise it by my honor as lord of house Apomono."

"All right. See you tomorrow then." I turned to leave.

"Eric! Aren't you forgetting something?" Victor called after me.

Turning around I saw him point at Jin lying on a table.

"Uhm, oh yeah. Thank you." I doubled back to pick up the sword and then left the backstage area.

I had barely taken a step outside when I was attacked by a storm of brown hair.

"Oh you damn idiot, what in the world were you thinking?" Elly almost tackled me to the ground with a hug. I yelped as my shoulder was crushed.

"Elly that hurts."

"Ah and who do you have to blame for that?"

Still though she let up and released me from her grip. Without her hair blocking my view I could see that the rest of our little group was here as well.

"Dude that was awesome! You totally pulled off the whole champion shtick." Dan was grinning from ear to ear. He put on an imitation of my voice, "_By my right as blade bearer I challenge you. _You really do have a penchant for drama."

"Oh shut up."

"How's your shoulder doing?" Elly asked tentatively.

"It's not that bad, they basically just put a bandage on it and called it good."

"Sophia! Laura! What are you doing?" We all flinched at Ms. Bianchi's shriek. I looked around and saw that the twins had picked up Jin from where I dropped it after Elly's assault. They had it already half drawn when they dropped it at Ms. Bianchi's outcry. "I'm not having you playing around with a sword!"

"Oh but it's so cool mom." Laura put on an angry pout.

I rather agreed with Ms. Bianchi so I collected Jin from the ground, putting it back into its sheath.

"Well I think we could all do with something to eat." Jack said with a smile. "How about we all sit down for a pizza at the 'Mamma Mia'? It's basically become family tradition at this point anyway."

The proposition was met with agreement all around so a quarter of an hour later we were all seated in the Italian restaurant, ordering our favorite pizzas.

#

During our dinner the conversation was invariably drawn to the happenings of the afternoon. After the third attempt of the twins trying to get their hands on Jin I caved and let them have it, under the condition that they'd leave it sheathed. And so the sword traveled from hand to hand around the table. Rachel especially was taking some great interest in the sword.

"These gemstones are quite remarkable." She said looking through a jeweler's lens she had procured from her handbag.

"How come you're just carrying around a loupe?" I wondered.

"Oh, I guess I never told you that I'm a lapidary."

"Wow, so you work with all the elemental stones and such? That sounds awesome."

"That's because it is." She said with a grin. "Anyhow these gemstones are really something special, I've never seen anything quite like them. The closest I've seen would have to be the stones we use to make mega rings. But even then these are quite a bit different."

"Mega rings, huh? You think this sword could function as one then?"

Rachel shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't know, I'm definitely no expert on mega evolution."

"Hmm. Well I guess I have another question for Leonard tomorrow."

"You're meeting with Leonard tomorrow?" Mr. Bianchi asked with a raised eyebrow. He had been distracted by a message on his cell phone. "Curious. He just called for a meeting of the venerable houses tomorrow. I'd think that'd be connected wouldn't you?"

"Uh I guess so. How do you know of this meeting?"

"Well as head of venerable house Bianchi I'm invited of course."

"Venerable house Bianchi? Why'd you never tell me?" I turned to Elly with a asking look.

She shrugged. "Our family was never one to throw around their name, I didn't see a reason to start."

"What's the deal with the whole 'venerable houses' thing anyway?" I asked.

"Oh it basically means that a certain family has been around for quite some time." Mr. Bianchi said with a shrug. "About 400 years ago the city council of Ariala had some holes to fill in their treasury so they took to selling titles of nobility at an unheard of rate. All the noble houses which had already been around before that took to calling themselves 'venerable' to differentiate themselves of this new generation of nobles. Most of these new houses crumbled soon after, and with time most of the venerable houses followed as well, there's only very few of us left. Nowadays we mostly keep up appearances for tradition's sake. The only families with any real power anymore are the Malems and the Apomonos, they have been in charge of the city's gym ever since the pokemon league was established."

"Oh dad stop boring us with century old politics." Elly rolled her eyes. "We should get going anyway otherwise we'll be late for the fire dancers."

Elly was right, and in a bit of a scramble our group made it out of the restaurant and back to the main square.

When we arrived the benches had already been well filled. Mr. Bianchi showed our tickets and we were led to the very front row.

_"So much for 'not one to throw their name around'. I doubt that just anyone could have gotten their hands on those tickets." _I waited for an answer from Sam, but none came. Then I remembered that I had recalled him to his pokeball, after he said that he wasn't feeling too well. There was something more about it I knew, but as it was quite unlike Sam to want to be recalled to the ball, I didn't press the issue.

After we had all settled in (Dan had just acted like he belonged and had been waved through by the staff) we were waiting for the show to start. Elly was quite giddy with anticipation.

And then it started. The crowd grew silent as the curtains drew back. Five unlit torches were standing on the stage. With a caw a red and orange feathered bird swooped in. It was flying circles on the stage, lighting a torch with every rotation it did. After its fifth round, with all the torches lit it landed at the center of them.

Then the drums set in with a rhythmic beat. A man wearing a white fox mask and wielding a big staff entered from the left. A woman with the same equipment entered from the right. They lit both ends on fire and started spinning them in their hands.

Another pair of performers moved up from behind them, these carrying three smaller torches each. They started juggling them between each other igniting them in the process. As time went on the juggling became more and more elaborate, and the two performers in the foreground went into a frenzy. A fifth person took the stage this one completely clothed in white. They embraced the very front torch and were instantly set ablaze. A gasp went through the crowd at the sight.

It was hypnotic, time seemed to lose its meaning in this frenzy of red and orange. Something about it was deeply primal yet still refined. Their movements bled into each other, when one stopped another started.

And then it suddenly all stopped. The drums fell silent. The five figures on the stage froze in a circle around the center of the stage. Then they all blew fire. From the spiral of flame rose the bird from the beginning of the show with a great caw. As it ascended it seemed to pull the flames with it and at the apex of its flight it struck a pose. Wings spread wide, fire dripping from its feathers it took a nosedive. Pulling up at the last moment the bird soared over the audience. Heads turned after the burning falcon as it flew circles above the crowd. With one last dive it swooped back to the stage through five hoops which the performers on the stage were holding. The bird landed on a perch and struck one last pose as all the fire went out at once.

The curtains closed in complete silence. Slowly it started to dawn on the audience that the show was over, and a torrent of applause broke out.

#

On our way home Elly couldn't stop talking about the show. She seemed to have burned every last detail of the choreography into her brain and seemed determined to recount the entire showing at least three times before we got home. I checked up on Sam who apparently wasn't feeling any better.

_"You sure I shouldn't bring you to a pokemon center?"_

_"Yes. All I need is a good night's rest I'm sure."_

_"All right. Shame you missed the fire dancers though."_

_"Oh yeah. Well I'm sure you'll be able to catch me up on it later."_

_"Mhm. In that case see you tomorrow."_

There was definitely more behind it but I wasn't going to dig around any more. Sam would tell me eventually.

The next day we decided that we'd had enough adventures for a while. So after breakfast Elly, Sophia, Laura and me decided to play some board games. One very heated game of Ludo later (Laura pulled off an incredible comeback victory) Tess and Sam joined us. Tess was wearing a familiar silver necklace with a red crystal in the shape of a star on it.

_"Well look at you Casanova. So that's what you've been up to." _I smirked at Sam.

_"Mhm. You think she likes it?"_

_"Judging by how she's presenting it I'd wager yes."_

Tess was holding the pendant against her light blue hair. It seemed like she was asking Elly for her opinion. Elly started to giggle and nodded her head.

With now six players we decided to switch up games. Sophia, still a little miffed about the fact that her victory had been snatched from her, demanded liar's dice to be played. This went on and on, with us switching up games every half hour or so. Jack and Rachel joined us just before lunch for a game of Mafia. Since I was the first to be killed Ms. Bianchi drafted me for kitchen duty. I was soon joined by Jack who turned out to have a terrible poker face and had promptly gotten himself lynched. The three of us went about making a giant pot of spaghetti and tomato sauce.

Soon after, we all had eaten our fill and were lazily lounging around the living room. Our post lunch food coma was interrupted by a knock at the door. Mr. Bianchi entered wearing a cloak embroidered with a white rose. Right behind him was Victor wearing the same cloak he had worn yesterday. Sol had been retrieved from the tree and was now dangling from his left side.

"Mhhh, smells delicious." Mr. Bianchi said licking his lips.

"Dad!" The twins cried out tackling him with a fierce hug. Mr. Bianchi had to struggle to stay on his feet.

Victor stepped around the tangled mass of limbs with a grin.

"Hello Elly. Long time no see."

"Hey Vic." Elly got up and gave a jovial hug to Victor. "Long time indeed. When did you become a blade bearer?"

"Oh that was last year. Dad's leg has gotten bad enough that he felt he wouldn't be able to represent the family properly anymore. So he passed Sol on to me."

"Sorry to hear." Elly said with furrowed brows.

Victor shrugged. "He's been feeling better lately. And he was never too fond of the role anyway. Running the gym is more in line with his interests." He turned to me. "Hey Eric. How's your shoulder doing?"

"Uhm, fine." I shook his outstretched hand.

"Sorry about that. I was aiming for a little scratch like I gave Leonard. But your movements were rather erratic."

I didn't really know what to say to that, and a rather awkward silence arose. It was broken by Victor clearing his throat.

"Well I have something for you." And he handed me a letter.

It bore a wax seal with three crossed swords on it. Breaking the seal I unfolded the letter.

' To Sir Eric of venerable house Vetsch  
We cordially invite you to join us, to discuss the happenings of the past few days. Furthermore we would like to make preparations to swear you in officially as a blade bearer.  
Sincerely

Lord Leonard of venerable house Apomono  
Lord Adam of venerable house Malem'

Sam had looked over my shoulder reading the letter. Both of us had followed a very similar train of thought.

_"Well then. Whatever happened at that meeting this morning, I guess I belong to a venerable house now."_

_"It would seem the questions are piling up by the minute. _

I looked up from the letter and glanced at Mr. Bianchi, who had managed to free himself of the twins.

"Since when is it 'venerable house' Vetsch?"

"Since this morning." Mr. Bianchi grinned at me. "The council agreed that there was enough evidence linking you to an old noble house. But I think it better if you discuss this with Adam and Leonard."

_"Evidence linking me to a noble house?"_

_"I bet it's the sword. How often does a human receive a sword from a legendary pokemon after all?" _Sam mused.

"Alright I guess. Leonard still owes me a lot of answers."

"I can't let you go dressed like this though." Mr. Bianchi eyed me from across the room.

I looked down at my t-shirt and shorts. "What? These are perfectly fine clothes."

"They are, but you should really be wearing something a little more formal for such an important event."

"But I didn't bring anything more formal with me!" I was getting quite annoyed at this entire situation.

"Sir Eric!" Mr. Bianchi's eyes had narrowed to slits. "I will not have you insult the hospitality of house Bianchi like this! We will of course provide you with a suitable attire."

The whole room had frozen at the outburst.

_"Well are you gonna say something or did you eat a Thunderwave?" _Sam asked in my head.

_"Say something like what?_

_"How about a gracious 'thank you'?"_

"All right then." I conceded. "Thank you very much." I added sheepishly.

"I'm coming with you." Declared Elly. She got up and pushed me out of the room. Once we had left she let out a low whistle, "I've never seen dad like that. You really hit a nerve there." She chuckled. "All right, let's see if we can find some of Jack's old things, they should fit you pretty well." And with that she rummaged through a massive wardrobe and procured a nice looking shirt, and a fine pair of pants. "Ah and you'll need one of these!" She handed me a belt with a weird attachment on it.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"Well sir blade bearer, it's for your sword." She rolled her eyes. "What were you gonna do with it? Hold it in your hands and drop it every little hic-up?"

"I would have figured something out."

"Well I'll let you figure this one out. I've gotta get dressed as well."

"Wait, what for?"

"I told you I was coming as well didn't I?"

#

By the time I had dressed, retrieved Jin from my room and returned to the living room, Elly was already there. Entering the room I saw her wearing a very fancy dress embroidered with the same white rose as Mr. Bianchi's cloak. She was currently arguing very loudly with Victor.

"Sir Victor, I will remind you that not receiving a member of a venerable house would be a grave insult! I will accompany Eric!" Elly was glaring at Victor, hands on her hips.

"But ... but. Oh alright." Victor muttered weakly. He turned around as I entered the room proper. "Ah sir Eric. Well then we better get moving, my father isn't known for his patience."

And with that the five of us (Tess and Sam were both tagging along) took our leave, the twins energetically waving us goodbye.

"So you are Eric's partner then?" Victor asked Sam.

_"Aye." _Sam was thinking loud enough for us all to hear.

"Well you two did put up quite a fight yesterday. It was quite impressive really."

I spun around to see him smirking. "How did you notice?" I asked befuddled.

"You're not the only one with a psychic partner." Victor starting rummaging through his pockets.

"Hold up a minute what's going on?" Elly asked.

"Uhm. Sam kinda helped me yesterday with fighting Victor. For all the good it did." I elaborated.

_"You didn't end up with a sword sticking out of your stomach now did you?"_

"What do you mean he "helped" you?"

_"I took over some of his motor functions. Really for how quickly we came up with the plan it worked better than expected."_

"You did what?" Elly stared at us, jaw agape, eyes twitching from one to the other.

Fortunately Victor had found what he was looking for and tossed the pokeball at his feet. Out of the flash of light emerged a Metang. "This is Troy. Troy say hello to Sam and Eric."

_"Good morning." _Troy's voice rang deep in my mind.

"Hi I'm Eric."

_"And I'm Sam."_

_"Pleasure to meet you. You're the one who almost chopped off a piece of Victor yesterday, aren't you?"_

"Oh come on, you're exaggerating." Victor said indignantly.

Troy chuckled in his deep voice.

"Troy is that really you? I think last time I saw you, you were a little Beldum." Elly crouched down to height where Troy was hovering and gave him a fist bump.

_"Ah Elly nice to see you again as well. Oh and Tess's here as well, why I haven't seen you guys in forever."_

"Well you have your trainer to blame for that. He neglected to invite us to his blade bearer ceremony."

"You're never going to let that drop are you?" Victor rolled his eyes with a sigh.

"Nope!" Elly stuck her tongue out at him.

Troy broke out in laughter, one that was contagious enough that soon our entire group had trouble standing straight.

After we all had recovered from our laughing fit, Victor looked at me and Sam. "While I can't deny being impressed by you two coming up with such a plan on the spot, I sure hope you won't be pulling of such antics next time we meet. It does rather feel like cheating doesn't it?"

"Uhm, what exactly do you mean by "next time"?" I was furrowing my brows at that particular expression.

"Well since you're going to be a blade bearer, it will be expected of you to compete during the heroes festival."

"Excuse me what now? Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer my body without lots of little holes in it."

Victor shrugged. "I told them that would be your reaction, but you've gotta talk it out with dad and Leonard. The both of them are hellbent on finally having a third champion again."

_"Speaking of which." _Sam interjected. _"What happened with the sword of the third hero? I assume its bearer was the original third champion, no?"_

"They were indeed." Victor nodded. "House Sanglad held Ragna for a very long time, but their bloodline died out some 200 years ago, the sword was lost to time. Nobody knows where it is now."

For the rest of the trip the three psychic types mostly kept to each other, although every now and again Troy's laughter rang in our heads. Elly and Victor exchanged stories of what had happened to them. Somewhere along the road I noticed that this route seemed very familiar to me. We were heading towards the massive towering building that was the gym.

"Hey why are we heading for the gym?" I asked around.

"Oh it's where the council of the royal houses traditionally meets." Explained Victor. "It's also where new blade bearers are sworn in. It was originally built to house council members who had traveled from farther away, while the council was in session. Nowadays though it's mostly used for league purposes."

"That explains why it looks more like a mansion than a gym."

Victor laughed. "Yeah that's most people's reaction, when they come to the gym for the first time."

Soon after we had entered the gym and made our way up the flights of stairs. This time around however we didn't turn to the stairs leading up to the spectator stand, but went straight past them. Victor knocked at a great door before opening it and beckoning us inside.

Inside Leonard was sitting at a round table, next to him an older man I recognized as the gym leader, and assumed to be Victor's father, Adam. The both of them looked up at the sound of knock and got up from their chairs.

"Ah there you are." Boomed Leonard. "And I see you brought company. Lady Eleonora is it?"

"Indeed." Said Elly.

"Mhm very good. Your father informed us that you would be arriving as well. Pleasure to meet you." Leonard performed a small bow, which Elly responded to with a small curtsy.

"Very nice to see you indeed." Adam had strolled over as well, and was now leaning on a walking stick. "It's been how long? You've grown mightily since I've last seen you. Oh but we're neglecting our hospitality here. Please take a seat." And he waved to the chairs standing at the table.

After all of us had settled down (Sam opted to gently hover next me) Leonard started to talk again. "Alright Eric, I promised you yesterday I would give you some answers to your questions, and here we are. So go ahead, ask your questions."

_"Where do you think we should start?" _I asked Sam.

_"I think we should start at the basics."_

_"Alright."_

"Why did Keldeo give me this sword? What did it mean when it said that I was to be a champion of humanity?"

"Wasting no time I see." Leonard chuckled. "However I'm afraid I don't know for certain either. I can however give you my best educated guess. It's also connected to why the council decided to give your family the status of a venerable house. Take a look at this." He pointed to an enormous tome resting on the table. It was lying open, and looked about ready to fall apart if as much as a stiff breeze hit it. "This is am account of all the noble houses, dating back to the time of the heroes. Everyone's exploits and achievements are listed here. Roland himself is credited with writing this book. One of the entries has always been a point of much contention. This book is what the 'venerable' houses used to base their claims off. But like I said take a look for yourself."

I got up from my position at the table, Sam following suit. Walking up to the tome I saw that every page was filled to the brim with tiny handwriting. Every now and again it was interjected by a thin line, denoting where one entry ended and a new one began. With some difficulty I deciphered the rather short entry Leonard was pointing to.

'Sir Eric of House Vetsch  
Dark of hair, brown of eyes, five and a half feet of stature.  
Bearer of the blade Jin.  
Championed humanity in its direst time of need.'

_"This has to be a coincidence right?" _I consulted Sam.

_"It must be, I don't see any other reasonable explanation."_

"Wow you never told me that you're secretly 500 years old." Elly had followed me to the book, and read over my shoulder.

_"Ah you're not really one to talk. Read the next entry." _Sam thought out loud, sounding rather amused.

'Lady Eleonora of House Bianchi  
Fair haired, brown of eyes, five feet of stature.  
Daughter of Alexandra, Wife to Frederick, Mother to Alice and Rickard.'

Her entry was quite a bit longer, detailing her efforts of rebuilding the cities library after it burned down, along with a few other achievements. At the end of it however, a familiar line of text.

'Championed humanity in its direst time of need.'

"Yup that's my great great great, and some more, grandmother. I was named after her. Dad always said that she helped the heroes in their quest against Darkrai." Elly said nonchalantly. "But how do you explain the guy with your exact looks, your name and your sword being in this book."

"It has to be a coincidence right?" I looked at Leonard with a raised eyebrow.

"The first name and appearance probably is." He said with a shrug. "But it's hard to put off the sword and family name to sheer coincidence. It's been in your family before, it seems Keldeo chose you again."

"Like Leonard said, this sir Eric has been a contentious topic among historians." Adam said from his chair. "There is no other mention of this house Vetsch in any other sources. And even the existence of a fourth blade is very poorly documented. There are some versions of the heroes' tale that mention a traveler from a far off land helping the heroes, that is all. Your dashing entrance yesterday has changed things a little. As there is now a Vetsch standing before us, having been granted a blade by Keldeo personally, it lends a lot of credibility to this entry."

"So that's what it means with 'humanity in its direst time of need'? The fight against Darkrai? It really happened?" It all sounded more like a fairy tale to me. But then again I had been gifted a sword by a legendary pokemon not 24 hours earlier.

This time around it was Victor who spoke. "As far as we can tell, yes. Although the details were probably a little different from what you saw yesterday. Only five people in this entire book have that last line in their résumé. Yours and Elly's ancestors for one. The other three are the heroes themselves. There are some sources that tie this Eleonora to the heroes' endeavor. And this Eric fits the description of the warrior from a far off land, some of the stories mention. So yes we do indeed think that all these individuals had some hand in defeating Darkrai."

"And to come back to your original question." Leonard took over. "This leads us to believe whatever reasons Keldeo might have had exactly, they are somehow connected to why the original three heroes were chosen."

"But they banished Darkrai didn't they? And I haven't heard of any other legendary being on a rampage currently."

Adam leaned forward in his seat, resting heavily on his walking stick. "You jest, but there has been an big increase in legendary sightings lately. Something is up, they are gathering for some purpose or another. Furthermore ..." He was kneading his hands clutching the piece of wood. He seemed to think hard about what he was saying next. With a sigh he seemed to come to a conclusion. "What I'm telling you next must not leave this room for now. The champ has put out a notice to all gym leaders. A group of individuals is on the move. They call themselves the Umbra organization. They have stolen a rare artifact from the museum in Courier City, an old bottle that was used to seal away another legendary pokemon. As far as we know it's nothing but a curious trinket now, but then again, who would go out of their way to steal a useless piece of glassware?"

_"How nice of you to mention that fact, right after we got into the possession of quite a similar artifact." _Sam said, with a steeliness in his voice I'd never heard before.

Adam sighed again. "Your partner is a sharp one. Yes we've realized ourselves that the blades could very well be next on their list of targets. That's why we've taken precautions. Should they come for them, we will be prepared, unlike when they struck in Courier city. Still we try to keep this under wraps as much as possible, while still trying to inform everyone who could be their next target. In any case with these happenings and Keldeo's warning, we're fairly certain there's a storm brewing."

I looked down at Jin resting in the scabbard to my left. "Seems to me this sword is more trouble than it's worth."

"Maybe." Said Leonard. "But we don't really know what it's worth. What we can tell is that they're attuned to infinity energy. The stories say that the original blade bearers were able to us them to trigger mega evolution in their pokemon. The swords may only be of historical relevance to us, but you may be able to use it for far more."

"Furthermore," Adam said, "we've have launched an investigation towards this Umbra organization, and we will keep you updated. Their current MO seems to be to avoid direct conflict so we don't believe you to be in any immediate danger."

"Very reassuring." I furrowed my brows. "So what did you mean when you wrote you would be swearing me in as a blade bearer?"

"Ah yes. Well it's tradition to have the blade bearers take a vow of chivalry." Leonard said. "And it would be expected of you to attend the swords festival."

"No way. I already told Victor, I'd rather not get skewered on a yearly basis. Also I'm about to compete in the pokemon league, I don't know if I'll have to time to return here this time next year." I said shaking my head.

"We understand that, however next year we won't have to ... improvise how we did yesterday. We'll have to time to prepare you for the event and get you ready for the performance." Adam said grimly.

"Wait, performance? You mean the entire 'fight' was fake?" Elly asked incredulously.

"Some of it was." Conceded Adam. "Not all of it however, the beginning is choreographed while the ending is real. Real sword fights are a lot shorter than people think they are. Adding some fluff before the fight makes it a lot more attractive to viewers. If you'd prefer not to fight, all you'll have to do is learn the initial part, and then let yourself be defeated. Regardless of your choice however, I'll have to ask you to keep this little tidbit to yourself, we have an image to uphold after all."

"Alright let's assume I'd be willing to go along with that, I still don't know if I'll have time next year."

"We get that, and there is precedence of blade bearers being on travels and thus unavailable for the festival." Adam was furrowing his brows. "Look we're not trying to strong arm you into anything. We are just trying to keep up a tradition that is very dear to us. With only two blade bearers remaining it teeters at the abyss at any time. It isn't your tradition, but we hope that after experiencing the festival yesterday, you see the value in preserving it."

_"What's your thoughts on this?" I asked Sam._

_"He seems sincere about this. But this is your decision I don't think I can help you with it."_

I mulled over it for a while. The festival definitely had been something special and I couldn't deny that having a man to man duel on a stage was pretty bad ass, even if it were to be choreographed.

_"Oh lord, you really do have penchant for drama don't you?" Sam interjected my thoughts._

_"Shut up, you said it yourself, this is my decision. And I think I've come to a conclusion."_

"Alright." I said out loud. "I will play the part of blade bearer for you. But I have one condition."

"And which would that be?" Adam asked rather happy looking.

I got up and pointed at Victor. "I will be coming back here during my travels to claim my badge. When I do, I want you to be my opponent. You owe me a rematch."

Leonard broke out in hearty laughter, and I could have sworn I heard Troy in my head as well.

Victor meanwhile merely smiled. "That is fine by me. Don't expect it to be an easier fight than against my father though."

Adam shifted in his chair, looking a lot more relaxed. "Thank you very much Eric. Very well with that out of the way we've got some administrative issues to clear. Who is your oldest living relative in direct male lineage?"

The question came out of left field. "Uhm, well my granddad is dead, so that would by my dad Peter then?"

"Alright that makes him the lord of your house, and you will be sir until you inherit your father's title. We'll write a letter explaining some things. How long will you be staying in Ariala."

"Three more days."

"Good. You will be staying at the Bianchis' yes? We will send you the letter so you can take it home to your father. Now for your ceremony. We'll have to fast track it little due to nature of your stay, but we should be able to make the necessary preparations by the day after tomorrow." He reached into a pocket and retrieved a rather full envelope. "This is a description of the procedure. You won't need to know every little detail, but you should know when to say what." The envelope came sliding across the table towards me.

"With the performance you delivered at the festival, it should come easy to you." Elly grinned as I picked up the envelope.


	4. Of results and birthrights

CHAPTER FOUR

Of Results and Birthrights

With that rather less enlightening than I had hoped for discussion behind us, Elly and me returned to the beach house. I left it to Elly to deliver the sparknotes version of the happenings, while I went up to my room and took a look at the script Adam had given me.

_"Well they were right when they said I wouldn't need to know too much. Seems most of the stuff will be said for me."_

_"Mhm. They're not much for brevity it would seem though. A whole page detailing how exactly you're supposed to take your knee fall." _Sam said flipping through a different part of the script.

With a sigh I put away the piece of paper detailing the exact positioning of Victor, Leonard and me. I picked up my pokegear, which was demanding my attention with buzzing and ringing, and noticed that I had a whopping 87 unread messages in my class' chat. I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly feeling very dry. It couldn't be. The results weren't supposed to be available for another week at least. Opening up the chat my suspicions were confirmed however. The entire discussion revolved around who had gotten what marks in which exam.

I made for a mad dash down the stairs. "Elly, Elly it's here! They released it early!" I was shouting at the top of my lungs. I came to a sliding halt in the living room where Elly was sitting at the table together with the twins.

She looked up at me, looking rather worried. "What's here?"

"The results, they're on the school net."

"Oh." It seemed to take her a few seconds to realize what I had just said. When she did, she was off to races, storming off to her room to her pokegear no doubt.

Meanwhile I was so jittery that I barely managed to log in and pull up my results by the time Elly had returned. With a distinct knot in my throat I started to read.

'Mr. Eric Vetsch attended the trainer exam at TCI Ariala, and scored the following results:

Arithmetic and Algebra: 66/100  
History of the Coira region and its neighbors: 59/100  
Literature and Composition: 63/100  
Pokemon battles and league procedures (Practical): 99/100  
Pokemon battles and league procedures (Theoretical): 68/100  
Pokemon biology, first aid and evolution: 75/100  
Pokemon taming and training (Practical): 95/100  
Pokemon taming and training (Theoretical): 38/100

Where 60/100 constitutes a passing grade.

Average: 70.375'

I blinked staring at that last number. I had passed! The theoretical training exam had been a complete disaster as expected, but all in all these were pretty good grades. I looked up at Elly. She was clutching her pokegear hard enough to turn her knuckles white. "Hey how is it looking?" I asked tentatively.

Elly seemed to wake out of a trance. She turned her head and mouthed something.

"I didn't get that."

Elly cleared her throat and whispered hoarsely, "I passed."

"Awesome! So did I!"

"YES!" Elly came flying at me, and hugged all the air out of me. "WE DID IT ERIC! WE DID IT." Her whole body was shaking. "We did it."

I returned the hug, as Elly buried her face in my shoulder trying to conceal her tears. "Yes, we did it."

_"Good job. I knew you'd pulled through." _Sam thought.

_"Hah, I would never have been able to do this without you."_

That evening Ms. Bianchi baked an enormous cake. The twins got at the frosting and wrote "Congatulations Eric and Elly" on it, before quietly making off with the rest of the icing. Ms. Bianchi caught them red handed, but was in too high spirits to scold them.

It was some time during the celebration that I realized, that I hadn't sent a message to mom and dad yet.

_"What in the world am I gonna tell them?"_

_"Well how about telling them that you passed?" _Sam had just tried a bite from my piece of cake. Judging by the feeling of disgust that came with his mental message, he didn't like it.

_"And here I was thinking a sweet tooth like you would love the cake."_

_"Yeah no, this isn't sweet at all. Tastes like somebody put in seven whole lemons in this thing."_

_"Well it is lemon cake, don't know what you expected. That just means more cake for me." _I took a hearty bite from my piece. _"And anyway, you know what I mean. How do I tell them whole thing about Keldeo and the sword?"_

After a short pause he responded, _"I do think that is a conversation best saved for an eye to eye meeting."_

_"You think so?"_

_"Well what are you gonna write them? 'Mom, Dad I passed the trainer exam! PS: A legendary pokemon showed up gave me a sword and afterward the locals knighted me.' They're gonna have questions either way. I don't think you will be able to resolve this whole thing through text messages alone."_

_"Maybe you're right." _I sighed _"Still though, it feels wrong to keep them in the dark about this."_

_"It's only for a few extra days."_

Later that evening after we all had turned in for the night I got to writing a message for mom and dad.

'Hey mom and dad  
I'm doing great, the Bianchis are super nice and the beaches here in Latinia are a blast. Our results for the trainer exam came in today, and Elly and me both passed! We're both super happy right now, Ms. Bianchi baked a gigantic cake for the occasion. We'll be going back in three days, so we'll see us then.  
Love Eric'

I stared at the message with my finger hovering over the send button. Finally I decided to add something.

'PS: Something really weird happened yesterday. But it's something I'd rather talk to you about directly, so until then.'

With that I was happy with the text and sent it before going to sleep.

#

The next day it was back to the beach with us. Sam especially was ecstatic about it. As soon as we arrived he was back in the water. With a smile I lay down on my towel, basking in the sun trying to think as little as possible about anything at all. It worked remarkably well until I was woken out of my dozing by an excited voice.

"Hey Elly, Eric. I was hoping to find you here."

Lazily I opened my eyes and peered over my sunglasses at the exited person waving at us from across the beach. It was Dan wearing a brightly coloured Hawaii shirt, sporting a sick pair of shades of his own. And behind him was Axl but he seemed taller somehow. As they came closer I realized that he had evolved into a Machamp.

"Hey Dan. You got your results as well?" I asked sitting up.

"Yeah I did and I passed. Axl was so happy about the news, that he evolved on the spot." Axl posed and flexed all four of his arms. "So how did you do?"

"We both passed as well." Elly said from where she was building a sand castle with the twins.

"Nice to hear. So I guess that makes us two rivals then, huh Eric."

"Haha I guess so. But I don't know if I as blade bearer can enter a rivalry with such a pleb like yourself." I teased.

"Damn, who died and made you king? You wanna back those words up with action, or do you only talk a big game?"

"Well what were you thinking?"

"Axl's been itching for a fight ever since he evolved. How about it?"

_"What do you think Sam? Up for a fight?" _I looked to Sam who was lazily drifting in the water.

_"Eh sure. Getting a work out might be a good change of pace actually."_

"Alright Dan, we accept your challenge. Same rules as always?"

"Same rules as always." Dan grinned.

From the spot where we shook hands on the match we turned away from each other and started counting steps. On the third step we each marked a line in the sand. On the seventh we stopped and started to draw a circle. With the arena ready to go, Sam and Axl got into position on the lines we drew. Sam was still dripping as he had just gotten out of the water.

"Elly would you count us down?" I called.

"We'll do it!" Laura called out, Sophia fervorously nodding along. The two of them lined up a good few paces away from our makeshift arena.

"Three!" Sophia called out with a raised hand.

"Two!" Laura raised her hand as well.

"One!" Both of them had synced up now.

"Go!" The twins lowered their hands.

"Let's go Sam, Psybeam!" Sam sprung into action twirling his spoons and firing a purple coloured beam at Axl.

"Get out of there Axl, use the Sand!" Axl reacted immediately to Dan's shouted command. Kicking up sand to disperse the Psybeam, Axl got out of the way and closed the gap between him and Sam. "Hit him with Cross Chop."

"Sam teleport away, get some distance." Sam closed his eyes as Axl approached. And then he blinked out of existence, reappearing at the other end of the Arena. Axl came to a sudden stop just before the line that signified out of bounds.

"Don't let up the pressure, Bullet Punch!" Axl sped up tremendously all four of his fists glowing with energy. He closed the distance to Sam fast as a bullet.

"Get away! Teleport!" Sam again gathered his energy and teleported away before Axl reached him.

"You won't be able to run forever Eric! Bullet Punch again!" This time around Axl turned on a dime and readjusted his trajectory directly at Sam.

"You won't be able to keep up forever either! Teleport again!"

I had barely uttered the command when Dan put his plan in motion. "Now turn around and Rock Tomb!"

Axl turned around in his charge, and dug all for of his arms into the sand, halting his momentum. Right as Sam reappeared on the other side of the Arena, the sand compacted into rocks that trapped him. "Get him Axl, use Strenght to push him out of the Arena."

"Sam use a Barrier to stay inside!"

With no where to to go, Axl collided full force with Sam. The rocks burst apart, as Sam was pushed back. They were suddenly halted by an invisible barrier, mere centimeters before the line.

"Now Sam, use Counter!" Sam lifted his right hand, a glowing orb in his palm and moved it toward Axl, who was still trying to push him through the barrier.

"Crap. Axl brace for impact!" The Machamp once again hunkered down and dug his four hands into the sand for hold.

Sam gently pushed the orb into Axl's chest. Axl was pushed back by the force of his owns Strenght attack. The sand didn't give much hold and he kept on sliding, until he finally came to a stop well outside the boundaries of our arena.

Dan left out a low whistle. "You really got us there. Good match."

I only just now realized that we had attracted quite an audience which was now (lead by the twins no doubt) cheering. Sam was checking in with Axl, while Dan and me shook hands on a battle well fought.

"But I'm still gonna get my eight badges before you." Dan said with a grin.

"Who's talking a big game now?" I asked.

"Touche."

_"Nice work Sam. How is Axl?"_

_"A little miffed at the loss but otherwise fine."_

_"Good to hear. How are you holding up?"_

_"It was nice to get a change from the whole doing nothing all day, but now I'm ready to go back to it. Axl definitely packs a punch. Or rather four now, I guess."_

_"Well you definitely earned it."_

"Alright now, that was enough action for us." I said to Dan. "We're gonna relax for the rest of the day."

"Hear hear! Some well deserved rest, given that we managed to pass." Dan pat me on the back.

And rest we did.

#

The next day however rest wasn't exactly on my mind.

_"What did we get ourselves into here Sam?" _I wondered.

_"What do you mean 'we'? As far as I can tell you got us into this." _Came his rather snippy response.

_"Dang, that's a little harsh don't you think? I didn't ask Keldeo for this sword."_

_"But you were the one who agreed to playing this part."_

_"Oh shush. You sure we're gonna be able to pull this off?"_

_"I'm sure."_

Despite Sam's reassurance I had a queasy feeling in my stomach.

_"Well did they nail your shoes to the floor?"_

_"When did you pick up all that snark?"_

_"Pot, meet kettle. How could I not when I share a psychic bond with a snarky teenager? I like to think you inherited some of my calculating nature. Now you should really get moving."_

With a sigh I stepped through the doorway into the big hall beyond. Victor and Leonard were standing there, on what had just a few days before been the battlefield for the gym. Both of them were wearing their formal wear, sporting the cloaks with the embroidered swords. Quite a crowd had gathered for the ceremony. I could see the Bianchis, all in their formal wear up in the spectator stands where Dan and me had watched the gym battles from.

"Who lays claim to the title of blade bearer?" Leonard boomed as I approached.

"Sir Eric of venerable house Vetsch." I responded.

"And what's the basis of your claim, Sir Eric?" Victor asked.

"The sword of justice, Keldeo, has bestowed this blade upon me. It marks me as its champion and rightful claimant to the title." I presented Jin with a raised hand.

"Very well sir Eric. Step forward and swear your oath."

I took a few more steps, before going down on one knee. I unsheathed Jin and rested it on my thigh.

"Sir Eric." Victor began. "As blade bearer chosen by the swords of justice, do you swear to protect the weak, the defenseless and the innocent from the harms in this world?"

"I swear it."

"And do you, sir Eric," Leonard picked up, "swear to not bring shame upon your house or family, by the unprovoked giving of offense."

"I swear it."

"Do you swear to live by honor, and to seek no unjust rewards?"

"I swear it."

"Do you swear to eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit at all times?"

"I swear it."

"Do you swear to persevere to the end in any enterprise begun?"

"I swear it."

"Do you swear never to back down from a challenge posed to you by an equal?"

"I swear it."

"Do you swear to uphold and adhere to these values, until such time when you see fit to appoint a successor?"

"I swear it."

"Very well sir Eric." Leonard said. "In our function as blade bearers we dub you the second bearer of the blade Jin."

Leonard rested Hydenum on my left shoulder. Meanwhile Victor slung a cloak around my right shoulder. The cloak was identical to the ones he and Leonard were wearing, except for the fact that the sword on mine was the same shade of red as Jin.

"Rise sir Eric, of venerable house Vetsch, bearer of the blade Jin."

I got to my feet, clasping the cloak as I did. Sheathing Jin, I presented myself to the crowd which was applauding politely.

With the ceremony concluded everyone streamed out into the main hall where tables with food and drink had been made ready. I had many people shake my hand and congratulate me. All of them introduced themselves, but trying to keep track of all the names was basically impossible. Sam had made his way to me from the spectator stands and together we grabbed some food before heading towards the Bianchis.

"The cloak suits you." Elly said.

"Thank you. You look stunning as well." She was wearing an entirely white dress.

"You really think so? This has a bit too many frills for my taste. So Blade bearer huh? It's funny, me and Victor used to talk about how cool it would be to have one of these swords and now it seems I'm the only one without one."

"Did I hear blade bearer?" An elderly woman who was talking to Mr. and Ms. Bianchi turned around and faced me. She was wearing rather a lot of jewelry. "Huh there he is, the man of the hour."

"Ah, sir Eric this is lady Olivia of venerable house Glyn." Mr. Bianchi introduced her.

"Just Olivia will do fine." She stretched out her hand for a rather firm handshake. "So Keldeo really gave you that sword?"

"It did, yeah." I answered.

"Well that's the most interesting thing that has happened here in the last five decades, that's for sure." She said with a small smile. "Was about time too, this endless repetition of ancient traditions was getting rather tiresome. Some fresh blood will be nice to see. So you're going to be gathering gym badges soon enough eh?"

"I will be yeah." Her name somehow sounded familiar, and then I realized where I'd heard it before. "Uhm you don't happen to be related to Nyra Glyn, the gym leader?"

"In fact I am, she's my niece."

"Woah. I used to watch all her matches on TV."

"A fan eh? Well I'm sure we'd be able to arrange a meeting." Olivia said with a wink. "Although from what I hear you'll be taking the gym challenge soon, I'm certain you'll face her in due time."

Before I could give an answer I heard a voice from behind me. "Sir Eric, a word if you would?" Adam was waving me over from the other side of the room.

"Ah, better not let _lord _Adam wait." Olivia spat the word like it was curse. "It was nice making your acquaintance Eric."

"Likewise lady ... uhm likewise Olivia." She had eyed me at the mention of the word 'lady', so after my haphazard safe I ducked out of the conversation.

_"Peculiar woman, that was, don't you think?" _I asked Sam as we made our way through the crowd.

_"Indeed. And not all too fond of Adam it seemed. I wonder why that is."_

Heading through the crowd I finally came face to face with Adam. He was arm in arm with a woman with long red hair.

"Sir Eric, if I may introduce my wife, the lady Kathleen."

"It's a pleasure." She said with a small curtsy, to which I responded with a small bow.

"Likewise."

"Now that you're officially a blade bearer this is yours by birthright." And Adam procured a pokemon egg from somewhere behind him.

I rose my hands defensively. "I don't think I can accept that Adam."

"Nonsense. We've been told that you passed the trainer exam. I have the fullest confidence that you will take good care of it. Besides, it's tradition, every new blade bearer gets one."

I was rather struggling to find some words. "I ... I ... thank you, but I really can't accept it. I don't have my trainers license yet, I'm not allowed to have another pokemon."

"Well this isn't a pokemon yet, now is it." Adam looked at me with a wink. "Besides it will be what? A month until you're officially a trainer. I'm sure no one will bat an eye at an early graduation present."

_"He's right you know." _Sam chimed in. _"We both know you'll take good care of it."_

_"Oh alright."_

"Alright. Thank you Adam. I will take good care of it, I promise."

"I know you will. Now I have something else for you." Adam rummaged through the pockets of his coat. "Ah there it is." He produced a letter. "This is for your father and mother, explaining the situation. Most of the stuff we've already talked with you about, but there's some administrative issues that need resolving. You'll have to chose a sigil for your house, for example."

"Ok. I'll talk with them about it."

"Very good." Adam pulled out a pocket watch and studied it. "If you'll excuse us, we have an appointment to make. Thank you Eric for accepting this position."

"Thank you for the egg." Then I realized that Adam neglected to mention what kind of pokemon it belonged to. "Uhm, by the way, what's in it?"

Adam chuckled. "Now wouldn't that ruin the surprise if I told you. You'll find out soon enough. Good bye Eric." And with that Adam and Kathleen took their leave.

_"Well that was something. What do you think is in it?" _I asked Sam.

_"Not the faintest clue."_

_"Hmm."_

As we turned around to return to the Bianchis, I saw that Elly and Tess were already heading towards us.

"Hey." Elly said. "Come with me, I've got something I wanna show you, before we leave tomorrow."

"Oh? Where are we going?" I wondered.

"Well you'll see." She said.

I raised a questioning eyebrow at Tess.

_"Don't ask me." _She thought with a shrug. _"She's dragging me along as well."_

"Alright then. Lead the way." I stowed away the egg, in one of the cloaks rather roomy pockets.

And the four of us made our way out of the crowded room and into the foyer. From there Elly led us out the back door into the gardens of the estate. A Florges was tending to one of the many flower beds. A hedge maze took up most of the garden. The Florges looked up from what it was doing.

"Hey Fleur. Nice to see you're still doing good." Elly said.

The Florges folded its arms and looked poignantly at Elly.

"Don't worry we'll look out for your flowers."

Seemingly placated, the tall yellow pokemon resumed tending the flowers.

Elly lead us into the hedge maze.

"I hope you know what you're doing." I said.

"Oh don't worry, Vic and me used to play hide and seek here. I know this maze like the back of my hand." Elly said with a grin lost in thought.

Elly led us through the labyrinth first going left then right, right again and another left turn. Straight into a dead end.

"I thought you knew where you're going. Unless what you wanted to show me is this dead end."

"Hmph. That's what Vic always thought as well. He never found me in this hiding spot." Elly pressed herself against the hedge in the dead end and then sidled towards the corner and through the other hedge, an astonishing feat considering she was still wearing her elaborate dress. Tess followed her up close.

_"Uhm. Ok then. I guess nothing to do but to follow." _So I followed suit pressing myself against the hedge and then moving into the corner. It turned out there was quite a roomy gap in the hedge concealed by the corner.

Coming out on the other side Elly and Tess were standing in a small area enclosed on all sides by the hedge maze. In the center stood an obelisk, surrounded by a huge bed of forget-me-nots. The place had an calm almost eerie presence about it.

"Wow." I breathed. "This place is beautiful."

_"Something feels off about it." _Tess thought out loud.

The obelisk loomed over the flower bed. "I think I know what you mean. Something about this whole thing seems so ... serene, I guess."

_"It's more than just serene." _Sam thought, having made his way through the hedge as well. _"This place feels incredibly sad."_

Tess shuddered. _"Someone's walking over my grave."_

"And you're the only one who knows about this place?" I asked Elly.

She shrugged. "I assume Fleur knows it exist, who else would take care of the flowers? But apart from that I don't know anyone else who ever mentioned it. I found it randomly while playing hide and seek."

I took a few steps forward, careful not to disturb the bright blue flowers around the statue. There was a plaque on the pedestal, covered in dust and dirt. I wiped it off and read the inscription.

'This memorial stands as tribute to all those who championed this world until the very end.'

Looking up again at the obelisk, I had to agree with Sam. The way it stood there, there was an air of finality about it. "Why did you wanna show me this?" I asked Elly.

She shrugged again. "I don't really know. But with you becoming this champion of Keldeo it felt right for you to come visit. This place must have been really important to the heroes, why else would they hide it away like this? The whole mansion was constructed by them."

_"Can we leave here? This place is giving me the creeps." _Tess interrupted.

_"Agreed." _Sam said, uncharacteristically short spoken.

His unease had started to infect me. "That would probably be best yeah."

"Oh" Elly sounded a little disappointed. "But it's so beautiful here." She stared absentmindedly at the statue.

_"Please Elly. I really don't wanna be here anymore." _Tess tugged at Elly's dress. That seemed to snap Elly out of it.

"Oh, I'm sorry Tess. Alright let's leave then."

And together we made our way back through the hedge and out into the open again. Sam and Tess still seemed a little agitated about the whole ordeal.

_"Something happened at that place." _Sam thought to me. _"Something that released a lot of ... sad energy I suppose."_

I had never known Sam to struggle for words, so whatever it was that he picked up, it must have been quite extraordinary indeed. _"Are you going to be ok?"_

_"I think so yeah."_

We strolled around the gardens to get our minds off of things. Afterward we returned to the gym where the festivities were being wrapped up.

#

The next day was relatively uneventful. We packed our things, which proved more problematic than I had expected. Between the egg and the cloak I'd been given, there was just barely enough room in my suitcase. Not trusting the pressure I had to apply to get the thing closed, I resorted to carry the egg around with me instead.

Laura and Sophia meanwhile were running around all over the place looking for their things all over the house. With everyone ready to go we boarded the ferry to Calibrea city. For once everything went according to plan and we managed to catch our train in Calibrea that would take us straight home. The ride went by fairly quickly, we killed the time playing various card games. Soon enough we arrived in Corbel city. Everyone got off the train, I said my last goodbyes to the Bianchis in the bustling train station before we each went our ways home.

The weather was rather dreary so Sam and me kept up a brisk pace, and about 20 minutes later we turned into the street where our house stood. It was just about noon, but as the sun was hidden behind the clouds you couldn't really tell. I pulled my trunk across the porch up to the front door. Juggling the egg I elbowed the door handle and entered.

"Hey mom, I'm back." I called out kicking off my shoes.

"Hey sweetie." I heard her voice coming from the kitchen. Following my nose I left my trunk and the egg in the corridor.

Mom was standing at the stove stirring in a big pot. "Did you have a nice time?"

"Yeah, the beaches there really are something else. And it turns out that Sam is secretly a water pokemon. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to get him out of the sea."

_"Meanwhile you were glued to your towel. Did you even see the water at all?" _Sam remarked.

"I totally did."

Mom was grinning and came over to hug me. "Congratulations on passing Eric. Could you set the table? Dad should be here any moment."

"Of course mom." I got plates and cutlery from the cupboard and set them on the table. As usual the table was already full with other stuff, on the very top a cutout from a newspaper. My eye was drawn to the highlighted headline.

'Swords festival interrupted by the appearance of a legendary pokemon.'

_"Huh. You think they already know?"_

Sam moved an invoice with a flick of his wrist. It had covered the rest of the article and the picture that went with it. There I was holding Jin in my hands Keldeo in front of me.

_"I'd say they know. And whoever made that picture is a hack. There was no possible angle they could have gotten the both of you on a picture like that."_

_"Do tell? So much for journalistic integrity I suppose."_

Shoving the pile of assorted letters and newspapers aside I started setting the table. I was just about done when I heard the front door open again. "Who left their luggage out in the hallway like this?" Dad stuck his grinning face through the kitchen door. "Ah of course, the master of mayhem and future champ himself."

"Hey dad. You're just on time! There's gonna be lunch soon."

"Sure smells like it." Dad ducked back into the corridor to hang his coat.

"Au-Audino!"

"What is it Rea? Oh, where did you find that?"

Dad's Audino Rea came waddling through the door, carrying Adam's egg in her arms. Judging by the look on her face she wasn't happy with how I'd left it out of my sight.

"Hey Rea. Don't give me that look! I took good care of it. Pinky swear."

Rea pouted and demonstratively coddled the egg.

"Where did you get that from?" Dad, now coatless, stepped back into the kitchen furrowing his brows.

"Ah that's a long story. A really long one. Don't think I can get through it on an empty stomach."

"Well then." Mom turned away from the stove, dad giving her a peck on the cheek. "By the time you brought up the bag to your room, food should be ready."

"Got it mom." Up the stairs I deposited my trunk in my room and returned to mom ladling soup into the plates. "Smells delicious."

"Alright then dig in."

And so we did. Between spoon fulls of soup I got started with getting mom and dad up to speed. "You won't believe who we ran into on the ferry. Dan just happened to be going on vacation to Latinia."

"No way! What are the odds of that? How is he doing?" mom asked.

"Pretty good. He passed the exams as well, and Axl evolved. First thing he did after that was challenge us."

"As was to be expected." Dad said with a grin. "But where did you get that egg from?"

"Well." I reached for the newspaper cutout. "It all started with this I suppose." I held up the piece of paper.

"You really could have given us a little more than that cryptic message, we we're worried honey." Mom said. "But what exactly did happen?"

And so I began to retell the recent events, about the heroes, about how Keldeo showed up after the duel and how it gave me Jin.

"It gave you a sword?" Dad asked.

"Yeah. Hold up I'm gonna get it." I went and retrieved Jin from my room, together with the cloak and Adam's letter.

"You weren't kidding huh?"

At that remark I couldn't help myself but laugh out loud. "Nope."

I continued relaying what had happened. How me and Victor had dueled (prompting a shocked "You did what?" from mom), how I'd met with Adam, Leonard and Victor the next day. About the Eric who had held the sword 500 years ago and about the venerable houses. Sam would fill in any details he felt I left out. Finally I recounted the sword bearer ceremony and how Adam had given me the egg and the letter.

"Sure sounds like you had plenty of time to relax." Dad said rather wryly.

"You don't seem overly surprised." I said.

"I'm not. There have been some strange going ons lately, legendaries are gathering, and that usually means trouble."

"Adam said something similar."

"Aye. The gym leaders have been in a furor. And so is professor Castanea. He didn't even have the time to pick up the eggs he ordered. Had to send his intern to pick them up." Dad had finished his lunch and got up. "Anyhow I'll have to get back to work for today."

Rea finished her food before walking up to me and pushing the egg into my arms with an angry stare.

"Don't worry Rea, I'm taking good care." I tried to appease her.

Seemingly somewhat satisfied she followed dad out into the hall. "See you later." Dad called from the front door.

"Bye dad." I called after him.

After helping mom with doing the dishes Sam and me went to our room. I threw myself on my bed. _"Ah, home sweet home."_


	5. Of preperations and hatchlings

CHAPTER FIVE

Of preperations and hatchlings

"Wow my dad would have never let me keep a sword."

"Well I was a bit older than you at the time, I don't think dad would have been thrilled to let me keep it if I was 12."

"I wanna grow up so I can get a sword as well!"

"Hah, well it's not all that it's made out to be. They're heavier than they look and honestly a bit of a pain to take care of. Not to mention that very few people have use for them."

"But what was in the egg you got?"

"Ah now now don't get ahead of yourself. Me and Elly first had some preparations to make."

#

"So where do you wanna go first?" I asked Elly. We were sitting in a cafe in Corbel's old town. People were bustling around going about their business. Due to the lush weather we'd decided to move our planning outdoors with a nice cup of coffee. Sam was nibbling on a cookie and Tess was sipping on a glass of apple juice. On the table before us lay a map of the Coira region.

"Personally I need to hit the eight gym cities: Latinia, Lucida, Deneane, Garamond, Eras, Nirmala, Borealis and Corbel of course." I pointed at each of the cities in turn. "I'm flexible in my order though."

Elly put down her coffee and bent over the map. "The first contest of the season will be here in Ariala. Everyone who's anyone will be there, which naturally means I have to be there as well."

"Naturally." I said with a slight smile.

"I will need to catch at least a second pokemon before that."

"You sound like you have something in mind already."

"I do." She pointed at a forest. "The Fletchling line nests in Garamond forest. Lines up pretty well if you ask me, you get to knock out your first gym and then it's only a small hop over to Ariala City."

"Still planning on joining the fire dancers eh?"

"Not really, but I've always wanted a Talonflame, they're so cool. You already have a plan for your next team members?"

I shrugged. "Nope, I still don't know what's in Adam's egg so no real use in doing planning, I'll just go with the flow for now."

"Your dad couldn't figure out what kind of egg it is either?"

"No, whatever it is, it must be somewhat uncommon."

"Mhm." Elly thoughtfully sipped from her coffee.

"Did you see this?" I put today's newspaper on the table pointing at the headline. It read: 'Break-in to local museum.'

Elly picked up the paper with furrowed brows. "I haven't. Why are you so interested in it?"

I looked at Sam who was finishing up the last bit of his cookie. He gave me a mental nod. "Well the article mentions that the only thing stolen was one of Ho-Oh's feathers. Me and Sam were thinking who would go through the trouble of stealing something so pointless."

"You don't think?"

_"Umbra?" _Tess thought out loud.

I nodded.

"I think you might be jumping to conclusions here. Maybe it was just a bunch of overexcited kids."

"Maybe." I said thoughtfully.

An awkward silence arose. Elly stirred her coffee. Finally she broke the silence. "Look what dad got me!" She rummaged in her bag and pulled out something that looked a bit like a pokeball, except that it wasn't ball shaped, being more oblong.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's a tent." Elly exclaimed. "Self building, easily portable and enough space to easily fit 4 people. Dad pulled some strings for me at Silph. Co. It's their newest product."

"Well that's gonna come in handy for sure."

"Yup." Elly stowed the capsule back in her bag. "So what's on your shopping list?"

"I need a new pair of hiking boots, my old ones are definitely unfit for a trek across the region. And a bigger backpack as well. What about you?"

"Need a new rain coat, mine is leaking."

"Well then you wanna get cracking?" I put away the map and the newspaper.

"Sure." Elly waived over a waiter and we payed our bills.

The rest of the day we spent shopping for various things we were going to need. I found a nice backpack with a camo pattern in a pawn shop for an affordable price. Elly found herself a bright red raincoat and a matching red cap. Last on the list were my boots and I tried on a good dozen of them until I finally found a pair that fit comfortably.

With all our shopping done Elly and me sat in an ice cream parlor and enjoyed the last bit of the afternoon warmth. In a week we would have our graduation and after that our journey would officially begin.

#

The gym that had 2 months earlier hosted our ball was now packed to the brim with seats all pointed at a stage that had been put up for the occasion. Most of them were in use too, the front row occupied by the graduates, while the rest were filled with parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts. The faculty was seated in the front as well, with dean Chekhov currently on stage. A portly man, he was wearing a dark grey suit and dark trousers. He was currently in the middle of his speech, and only very few of the students were paying attention, after all it was the third such speech today.

"But now your journey here comes to an end. But the end of one journey is merely the beginning of another. We have done our best to prepare you for what's to come."

"Yeah especially professor Adler." Dan said under his breath. Though loud enough to cause some snickering around us.

"Though maybe I am the wrong person to be talking about what comes after." Dean Chekhov's eyes rested on Dan who was still grinning from ear to ear and surrounded by students who tried very hard not to crack up. "So please if you would, give a kind welcome to Catherine Scarlett, current champion of the pokemon league."

That caught people's attention. A woman in her fifties took the stage. Catherine was greeted by polite applause. She was wearing a very formal blazer and a matching tie. Her grey hair was around chin length. Scanning the crowd with piercing blue eyes and she was smiling very slightly.

"Thank you Dimitri." Her voice carried throughout the entire hall seemingly without any effort. "You have spent the last four years learning everything you could about pokemon and it certainly will come in handy in your chosen professions. However the most important part you can take away from your time here is a certain mindset. All of you signed up, decided to invest time, to now be a better version of yourself than you were before. And that is what you should always strive for. Winning or losing is secondary as long as you keep improving. The time runs for all of us and at some point you will have to take over and you will need to be the best you can. That is how we better the world, by bettering ourselves and those that come after us." Catherine was sweeping the crowd and I could have sworn her eyes lingered on me for just a second.

"Soon you will go out into the world and make your own experiences and if you strive every day to be better than your last, eventually you will find success. And for those of you who will be taking on the league circuit I'm looking forward to facing you in the arena one day. Until then, I wish you a nice graduation, and best of luck with your next step." The audience once again gave a polite applause as Catherine gave a short nod and stepped away for dean Chekhov to take over again.

"Thank you very much Catherine. Now we will be concluding our proceedings today. If class 4T would come up here so they can receive their diploma."

There was shuffling all around me as the trainer course got up and stepped up the stage. "If you would line up in alphabetical order please." Instructed dean Chekhov from the front of the group.

After we had all gotten in line he and our homeroom teacher Smith started handing out diploma and pokedexes. Many handshakes and congratulations later we were herded out of the gym onto the school's courtyard.

"Alright line up! Big people in the back shorter ones in front." A man with a camera and a humongous mustache was waving and pointing at a spot where he wanted us to pose for our graduation picture. Dan and me were in the back together with Eddie. Mustache switched a few people around until he thought we were all lined up properly. Dan for once wasn't pulling faces when being put in front of a camera, instead holding up his diploma and beaming from eye to eye.

"We really made it." Dan said under his breath. "You already got a plan for after this?"

"Yeah, me and Elly are gonna hit Garamond." I said from the corner of my mouth.

"Alright, say cheese." Moustache said raising his camera.

After us the other classes had their pictures taken as well, the rangers, breeders and coordinaters all took their turn posing for their photos. I was watching as Elly and her classmates were getting in position when there was a cough behind me. "Mr. Vetsch is it?"

I turned around to see Catherine standing there, her arms behind her back.

"Uh, yeah. That's me." I said.

"On a word if you would." She said waving me over. "My name is Catherine Scarlett. I am the current champion of the pokemon league."

"Nice to meet you." I shook the hand Catherine offered me. "And it seems you already know who I am."

Catherine chuckled. "Indeed. So you met Keldeo in flesh and blood?"

"Yeah, what is it to you?"

"We like to keep tabs on people like you."

"People? I'm not the only one then?" I furrowed my brows.

"Very observant." Catherine flashed her teeth with a smile. "Yes you're not the only one who has been contacted by a legendary pokemon. Which is more than a bit worrying."

"So you've figured out what they're up to?" I asked.

"I wish. Mr. Vetsch you have to understand the legendaries think differently from us. They are timeless, ageless and they have at least some form of premonition." The smile had vanished from her face. "If they have plans they take decades or centuries to come to fruition. For all we know whatever Keldeo wants you to do might happen in ten or twenty years."

"Well whatever it is me and Sam have got it under control." Like I was gonna tell the champ how worried I was about not being able to live up to whatever Keldeo saw in me.

Catherine laughed heartily. "Ah the self confidence of youth. But it would seem like you are ready to rise to whatever challenge might present itself."

"Oh we will."

"Well I look forward to your challenge if you make it to me." She extended her hand and flashed her perfect smile once again. "Have a nice rest of your graduation Mr. Vetsch."

I shook her hand. "Thanks." Then I realized this might be the perfect opportunity to at least put one of my suspicions to rest. "You wouldn't happen to know if this break in to the Corbel historic museum was connected to the Umbra organization?"

Catherine's face fell. "We are currently investigating, but it's a likely possibility. How did you come to that conclusion?"

Well damn here was hoping it was just unfounded paranoia. "The only thing any of us ever cared about when we took our school trip there was the rainbow wing. And who would go to the trouble to steal a pretty feather? Maybe it's just my paranoia talking but ever since Adam mentioned them I've been worried they might come after me for Keldeo's sword."

Catherine adjusted her tie, seemingly looking for something for her hands to do. "Adam did say you're a sharp one. We've been keeping your identity a secret as best we can for the time being, so hopefully Umbra doesn't know you have the sword yet. For what it's worth they seem to be avoiding direct conflict for now. They've been mostly raiding dusty archives and understaffed museums."

"You think whatever they're up to might be connected to what Keldeo wants me to do?"

"It's a possibility, but you shouldn't worry about it for now. The league is handling it, you just take care of those gym challenges." The assured smile had returned to her face. "Now I must really get going. I wish you a good start to your journey."

"All right everyone gather for the big group photo now." Mustache was calling out.

'You shouldn't worry about it', easier said than done.

#

I was spending my last evening at the dorms sitting at my desk going through some final preparations for Ellie's and mine departure tomorrow. The school offered every graduate to stay the night, since many trainers and coordinators would start their journey from here. I'd stocked my backpack with water and some sandwiches and a can of ravioli just in case, as well as some bandages and some basic medical supplies. Originally the plan had been to go to bed early to be ready to go tomorrow, but sleeping had proven tough with the thoughts tumbling around my head. So I had resorted to the next best thing, thumbing away at my brand new pokedex.

The pokedex had come a long way since Professor Oak had invented it. Back then it was barely more than a fancy encyclopedia now there were very few things it couldn't tell you about a pokemon when you pointed at it. It could give you a measure of a pokemon's strength through something called a level as well as make a very good guess at its known moves. There were even rumors going around of a prototype that could tell you how much your pokemon likes you.

But the pokedex had evolved beyond just its original purpose. Now it also served as identification for any participant in league organized events as well as their pokemon. I was scrolling through Sam's entry the machine had logged. It listed him as level 18 and able to use the moves Psybeam, Confusion, Teleport, Kinesis, Disable, Reflect and Ally Switch. I added on Barrier and Counter which had been our projects in the training course.

_"You should go to sleep." _Sam chimed in. His mental stream felt slow and mellow, a clear sign he was in the trance that replaced sleep for him.

_"I know, it's just hard. Tomorrow is the day me and Ellie have been preparing for for the last few years."_

It took Sam a few seconds to respond. _"It's not gonna help if you're gonna be dead tired tomorrow."_

I sighed and put the pokedex away. _"You're not being super helpful you know." _Before Sam could muster a response however I heard a crack from the left of me. I turned just in time to see a web of cracks form on the egg sitting in its incubator on my desk. A faint glow was coming from the inside.

Carefully I retrieved the egg feeling a bit giddy at the prospect of finally figuring out what pokemon would be joining my team. The egg shuddered and cracked down the middle the light pouring out of it had now turned blindingly bright, illuminating my room. As quickly as it started it was over leaving behind dancing afterimages in my vision. I blinked trying to get rid of them and managed to get a glimpse of something blue before it wrapped itself around my head.

"Hey buddy calm down." I mumbled grasping at the thing that had attacked my face. I could hear a metallic rasping sound while I flailed with my arms trying to untangle the fabric that was filling my vision. Finally I managed to get hold of a fray and unravel the whole situation.

Now with a much clearer view of the situation I could take stock of the newcomer. The pokemon looked like a sword, with a single big blue eye on its cross guard and a sky blue tassel attached to its pommel.

"Hey there." I reached out with my hand to pet the pokemon. As soon as my hand touched the hilt a numbness went through my arm. I pulled back immediately and the pokemon started making that rasping noise again. It gave me the distinct feeling that it was laughing at me. Opening and closing my hand to get the feeling back I grabbed hold of my pokedex with the other. A scan later the following crawled over the screen:

Honedge  
Type: Steel Ghost  
Lvl: 1  
Gender: Female  
Ability: No Guard  
Known Moves: Shadow Sneak, Tackle, Swords Dance  
These pokemon were once believed to be vengeful souls trapped in the swords that took their lives. Furthermore they were thought to steal the souls of anyone who dares grab their hilt. With the better understanding we have gained regarding ghost pokemon these stories have since been disproven, but the stigma has sticked. Like many ghost pokemon they mainly feed off human lifeforce, this particular species however does so in a more direct way than most which is also the source of the aforementioned rumors.

That last line reminded me of when we dealt with ghost types at school. They as well had mentioned that most ghost types don't eat in the conventional sense, instead feeding of the life force of other beings around them.

"So you were just hungry huh buddy?" Looking up from the display I saw Honedge floating around the rooom seemingly very interested by my bookshelf.

_"I'm starting to see a pattern here." _Sam said in my mind, apparently now awake. _"These people really have something with swords, don't they?"_

_"It seems so. What do you think of our new team member?"_

_"She seems interesting, the fact that she tried to eat your soul has me a bit worried."_

_"That's vastly overexaggerated, I know how to handle it."_

_"If you say so."_

Digging through my backpack I found the fist sized red ball I was looking for. "Well I'll need to think of a name for you. How about ... Gladia?" She was now mustering me with her eye but didn't seem to have any objections to the name. I gently touched the poke ball to Gladia and in a red flash she was captured by the device. After one shake the light on the ball dimmed and lay still. Tossing it on the floor I released her again. She immediately wrapped her tassel around my head again.

_"I see you truly got everything handled."_


End file.
